An Italian court has invalidated the detention in Albanian centers of the first 12 asylum seekers that Rome transferred there this week, corroborating sources said on Friday.
The court cited a recent ruling by the European Court of Justice on countries of origin considered ‘safe’ by receiving countries, under which the 12 migrants concerned, from Bangladesh and Egypt, do not meet the requirements. retention criteria provided for by the agreement between Rome and Tirana.
The government of Giorgia Meloni, head of the far-right Fratelli d’Italia (FDI) party, signed an agreement with Tirana at the end of 2023 providing for the creation of two centers in Albania, from where migrants rescued in the Mediterranean will be able to make a request asylum.
This five-year agreement, whose cost for Italy is estimated at 160 million euros per year, concerns adult men intercepted by the Italian navy or coast guard in their search and rescue zone. in international waters.
The procedure provides for a first check on a military ship, before a transfer to a center in northern Albania, at the port of Shengjin, for identification, then to a second center, on a former military base in Gjader.
Protestations
The first sixteen migrants arrived in Albania on Wednesday but four of them were immediately returned to Italy, two claiming to be minors and two others in need of medical treatment.
‘The media spectacle organized by the Meloni government clashes with national and international law,’ the NGO Sea-Watch Italy welcomed on X.
Ms. Meloni’s party, however, protested against this judicial decision, calling it “absurd” on X.
‘Certain politicized magistrates have decided that there are no safe countries of origin: it is impossible to repatriate those who enter illegally, it is forbidden to repatriate illegal immigrants. They would like to abolish Italy’s borders, we will not allow it,’ adds FDI.
The League, the anti-immigration party of vice-head of government Matteo Salvini, for its part denounced an ‘unacceptable and serious’ decision and attacked ‘pro-immigrant’ magistrates, inviting them to ‘stand for election ‘.
/ATS
