Costa Concordia: Moldovan dancer insists she is not captain’s lover

Miss Cemortan, who has a two-year-old daughter said: “I am not the
captain’s lover. You know why? He was always showing me photos of his daughter
when she was little. A man who wants a lover does not behave like that.”

Other rescued passengers claimed they had seen Miss Cermanto and the captain
sharing a decanter of wine at around 9pm last Friday.

But while admitting having dinner with several of the ship’s officers, Miss
Cermanto insisted the captain was not with them.

“It’s false to claim that the captain was with us,” she said.

Miss Cemortan has been employed by Costa cruises for around five years working
as a dancer and also helping translate for the large number of Russian
passengers on board.

It is thought she speaks four languages having spent time in Romania, France
and Italy.

However during the fateful voyage Miss Cemortan was not on board as an
employee but travelling as a passenger in order to celebrate her 25th birthday.

Her family in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau said she had been at home
earlier this month to celebrate her birthday but had travelled to Italy a
fortnight ago to join the week-long cruise.

Responding to suggestions she did not have her own cabin while on board, Miss
Cemortan said that was not true insisting she had her official cabin pass as
proof.

Describing the moment the vessel struck rocks and began to flounder, Miss
Cemortan said she had been asked by the captain personally to join him on
the bridge in order to translate information to the 100 or so Russian
passengers on board.

“Sure, I was close to Capt Schettino – I was translating what he was
telling me to say,” she said. “I translated into Russian what he
and his second in command were telling me in Italian – that passengers
should return to their cabins because it was just a power failure. I
repeated that last phrase maybe 10 times.”

And she claimed that rather than abandoning ship before his passengers as
widely suggested Schettino had remained on the bridge with the rest of his
crew.

“I’m sure that he was still on the bridge (around midnight) because it
was at that time that he told us to leave, to abandon ship. I and another
colleague said that we wanted to stay. But he told us to run. I saw him a
long time later, on the island.”

Miss Cemortan, who has joint Romanian and Moldovan nationality, was born in
Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, and studied ballet there.

She grew up in a deprived suburb of the city in a flat with her mother Vera,
her aunt and her disabled uncle.

Her father died around 10 years ago and her daughter now lives with her mother
while she is away at sea.

Last night her aunt said she had gone into hiding to get over the trauma of
the experience.

Breaking down in tears she said: “She is very upset by what has happened.
She used to live here but she moved away with her mother.

The last time we saw her was on January 6 when she came to celebrate her
birthday but now she just wants to be left alone to get over all that has
happened.”

It is thought Italian judicial authorities will want to talk to Miss Cemortan
as part of their investigation into the maritime disaster.

Views: 0

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply

Powered by WordPress | Designed by: Premium WordPress Themes | Thanks to Themes Gallery, Bromoney and Wordpress Themes