Italian prosecutors on Saturday 14 September requested a six-year prison sentence against Matteo Salvini, Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister, for preventing migrants from disembarking at an Italian port in 2019. Salvini, who is part of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition team, is on trial for alleged deprivation of liberty and abuse of power for keeping 147 migrants at sea for weeks on a boat run by the charity Open Arms.
“The prosecution has demanded that former Interior Minister Salvini be sentenced to six years in prison”Open Arms lawyer Arturo Salerni told Agence France-Presse as the proceedings drew to a close. The verdict in this trial, which began in October 2021, is expected to be issued next month, he added.
Salvini was not present at the hearing. He previously posted on Facebook: “I would do it again if I had to do it again: defending the borders against illegal immigrants is not a crime.” “It is incredible that a minister of the Republic risks six years in prison for having done his job in defending the nation’s borders, as required by the mandate he received from his fellow citizens.”added in X.
Disastrous sanitary conditions
Summing up his accusation, prosecutor Geri Ferrara of the Palermo court considered that“One key principle is indisputable: between human rights and the protection of state sovereignty, human rights must prevail in our fortunately democratic system.”.
The boat remained stranded at sea for almost three weeks before the courts finally allowed the migrants to disembark on the Italian island of Lampedusa. Open Arms members said the migrants’ physical and mental state had reached a critical point when sanitary conditions on board became disastrous, in particular due to a scabies epidemic. Salvini, leader of the anti-immigration League party and interior minister at the time, said in January that he felt the migrants were in danger of being taken to the sea. “the situation was not dangerous” on board the ship.
In 2019, while serving in Giuseppe Conte’s government, he implemented the so-called “closed ports” policy, under which Italy denied entry to humanitarian ships rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean. Much of the trial focused on whether responsibility for the affair lay with Conte’s government or solely with Salvini. He was previously prosecuted on a similar charge, but the charges were overturned by a Catania court in 2021.
