A balance sheet before the verdict
Twenty-four hearings, three years of trial, forty-five witnesses. These are the numbers of the Open Arms trial in Palermo which sees the deputy prime minister and transport minister Matteo Salvini in the dock, accused of kidnapping and refusal of official documents. The judges, Roberto Murgia president and Elisabetta Villa and Andrea Innocenti, retired shortly after 11.30 today in chambers to issue the sentence, expected “not before 6pm”, as Murgia explained. The accusation is of having denied disembarkation, as owner of the Interior, for nineteen days to 147 migrants, including 27 minors, rescued in three separate operations by the Spanish NGO Open Arms. According to the Palermo Prosecutor’s Office, “at least since 14 August 2019, Salvini” had the “clear obligation” to assign the vessel a safe port. But he did not do so, according to prosecutors, with “intentional and conscious disregard for the rules”, and voluntarily violating “the personal freedom of 147 people”. Thus, last September 14th, the deputy prosecutor Marzia Sabella. «He acted alone against everyone, causing institutional chaos, and without the presence of any real risk for the security of the country, but only» because «he feared the failure of the closed ports policy». No “legally, factually and humanly appreciable justification”, reiterated Sabella. And then, using a phrase often repeated by Salvini, he said: “We defend the borders, yes, but human rights.” “Human rights come first.” The defense, which filed a 296-page brief in October, reiterated that “from 15 to 20 August Open Arms had many solutions to land, and not just those that have been talked about so far.” «There is a gap, there is an always open door that the Coast Guard created. What is this door? The gap was human rights: it was enough to declare “I suffer from insomnia and stress” and off we went. Not an illness, something different”, said Giulia Bongiorno during the speech.
