The Italian Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, tried for having blocked a ship at sea in 2019 with 147 migrants on board, was acquitted at first instance on Friday December 20. Mr. Salvini was accused of abuse of power and deprivation of liberty for preventing the hundred or so migrants rescued by a ship from the Spanish NGO Open Arms from disembarking in Italy. He faced several years in prison.
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“In the name of the Italian people (…), the Palermo court (…) acquits Matteo Salvini of the facts with which he is accused, the offense not being established”declared Judge Roberto Murgia after deliberating, shortly before 8 p.m. The announcement of the acquittal was greeted by applause from the nationalist leader's supporters in the courtroom, according to journalists from Agence France-Presse (AFP) on site.
Head of The League, a far-right anti-immigration party, member of the ultraconservative coalition currently in power in Rome, Matteo Salvini, 51, rejects the charges of abuse of power and deprivation of liberty for which he is answering in court from Palermo.
The impasse lasted almost three weeks and made the headlines of newspapers around the world: other European Union (EU) countries had offered to welcome the migrants, NGOs had intervened, and the actor Hollywood actor Richard Gere was invited on the ship as a sign of solidarity. The migrants were finally allowed to disembark on the island of Lampedusa following a court decision.
“I am very proud of what I did”
Mr. Salvini arrived at the Palermo court around 9:30 a.m., shortly before the hearing opened, according to AFP journalists on site. “I am very proud of what I did. I kept my promises. I fought against mass immigration and whatever the judgment, for me today is a beautiful day because I am proud to have defended my country”he told the press. “I would do it again”he assured.
His lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, recalled on Friday, before the court retired to deliberate, that “the Italian penal code does not punish anyone who opposes the freedom to disembark in Italy”. She denounced “the use of migrants to fight ministers does not please a certain part of political opinion” in Italy, implicitly repeating his client's recurring diatribes against the “politicized judges”.
Mr Salvini has received the support of several foreign leaders and personalities, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Tesla boss Elon Musk and National Rally MP Marine Le Pen. Despite their personal differences, Giorgia Meloni, whose executive also put legal obstacles in the way of ambulance ships, also took up his cause.
Before the acquittal, Oscar Camps, founder of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, had affirmed that a conviction “could make history and set a precedent”. “We hope that the judge will resist the pressure and that he will be fair”he declared. A former Lombard secessionist who gradually moved his party towards the far right, Matteo Salvini implemented in 2019, within the government led by Giuseppe Conte (5 Star Movement, center), a policy of “closed ports”.
Speed up the processing of asylum applications
Italy then refused entry to humanitarian ships which rescued migrants making the often fatal crossing from the North African coast. The Open Arms crew testified that the physical and mental health of migrants aboard the ship stranded at sea had reached critical point, with dire sanitary conditions, including an outbreak of scabies. For Mr Salvini on the other hand, “the situation was not dangerous”.
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This expected verdict, more than three years after the opening of the trial in October 2021, comes as the Meloni government is facing judges over its own migration policy. Magistrates have in fact opposed his attempts to speed up the processing of asylum requests, particularly in two new centers managed by Italy in Albania.
His government has also restricted the activities of civilian rescue ships, accusing them of encouraging immigration, which observers say is not proven. Justice was able to prosecute the former Minister of the Interior after the lifting of his parliamentary immunity by the Italian Senate in 2020. A similar procedure, in which he was prosecuted for having refused 116 migrants to disembark from the coast guard boat Italians Gregoretti in July 2019, was abandoned in 2021.
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