ROME (AP) - An Italian court refused Tuesday to lift an order of
house arrest for Francesco Schettino, the captain of Costa
Concordia cruise ship that ran aground off a Tuscan island last
month.

The court in Florence rejected two requests: one from
prosecutors to jail Schettino and another from Schettino to be
freed.

Schettino commanded the ship with 4,200 people that ran aground
off the island of Giglio on Jan. 13, killing 17 people and leaving
15 missing. He is being investigated for suspected manslaughter,
causing a shipwreck and abandoning the vessel before all its
passengers were evacuated.

The ship remains partly submerged off Giglio.

Officials plan to remove about 500,000 gallons (2,400 tons) of
heavy fuel from it, but that has been delayed by rough seas and bad
weather. Once the fuel is withdrawn, the massive ship will be
broken into pieces and taken away - a process that could take many
months.