The case dates back to August 2019, when he, then Minister of the Interior, prevented the Spanish NGO Open Arms ship with 147 people on board from landing in Italy for 20 days. Salvini did not attend the hearing and the defense claims that “a political line” is being tried.
The Public Prosecution Service from the Italian city Palermo claimed this saturday 6 years in prison for the far right Matteo Salvini for having the NGO Open Arms ship was blocked with 147 immigrants in August 2019 when he was Minister of the Interior, in the context of his anti-immigration policy.
Prosecutor Marzia Sabella demanded the sentence after a long discussion before the Palermo Court, in which she pointed out in her conclusions that “the deliberate rejection” of that ship “harms the freedom of ‘immigrants’, without any understandable reason.”
Salvini, currently vice president of the government of Giorgia Meloni and Minister of Infrastructure, did not attend the hearing of this trial, in which he is accused of crimes including kidnapping and abuse of power.
The case dates back to August 2019, when the then Minister of the Interior prevented the landing in Italy of the ship of the Spanish NGO Open Arms with 147 rescued immigrants on board in the Mediterranean Sea, within the framework of his strict policy of closed ports.
The pulse lasted 20 daysuntil the night of August 20, 2019, when justice intervened to finally allow the ship access to the port of the Italian island of Lampedusa and disembark the 83 immigrants who had remained on board, since the rest had recently had little medical reason.
Before the request for sentencing, deputy prosecutor Colagero Ferrara pointed out during the hearing that “there is nothing political” in this trial, but rather “administrative acts” of the far-right politician in his capacity as minister are being assessed.
Ferrara explained, among other things, that when Salvini was appointed minister in June 2018, “the decisions on the landings were transferred to his office at the Ministry of Civil Liberties and Immigration.” “It was the minister who decided and this is a key element,” he claimed.
Defense lawyer Giulia Bongiorno, present in court, called his argument “a bit contradictory,” believing it to be “putting forward a political line,” she said during a media break.
Throughout the process, Salvini has defended that his intention was to defend Italy’s borders and force a dispersal of immigrants across Europe, and he has assured that his policies were “shared” by the rest of the government, a coalition between his League and the Five Star Movement, chaired by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
The prosecutor has maintained that respect for the rescued people must come first in any case. ‘There is an important and indisputable principle: between the Human rights and the protection of the sovereignty of the state, in our system the former must prevail,” he noted.
This trial was possible because the Senate voted in July 2020 to allow it, as the politician had parliamentary immunity and the first-degree sentence is expected in mid-October.
Source: EITB
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