The tight smiles, the anxiety, the hugs after the sentence. Salvini: “Defending the borders is not a crime”

Sitting, standing. Sitting, standing. Hands behind your back. Sitting, standing. Minister Matteo Salvini's wait it ended at 7.38pm on a rainy and windy evening.

Around him, in the bunker room of the Pagliarelli prison, they had just asked the lawyer Giulia Bongiorno what the number of happiness wasand she replied like this: «If the president of the court says 530 it is acquittal». This happened: «Given article 530 of the code of criminal procedure, Salvini Matteo absolves him of the crimes ascribed to him because the fact does not exist». In the eerie silence that always follows a sentence, these words were heard: “Well done!”. Salvini turned to the lawyer Bongiorno. “Well done, well done,” he repeated. From four rows behind, his partner Francesca Verdini approached. She burst into tears, they hugged. There was applause. No one will ever be able to tell the usual story of left-wing mick judges again.

Salvini risked six years in prison. He was accused of kidnapping and refusal of official documents. According to the prosecutors of the Palermo prosecutor's office, in August 2019 he deprived 147 migrants of their freedom on board the NGO ship Open Arms not granting a docking port. For the judge that fact – twenty days in the middle of the sea before being able to disembark – does not constitute a crime. No crime.

Thus, emptied after the tension and without an enemy to point to, Salvini came out in front of the cameras: «I am happy. After three years, common sense won, the League won, Italy won, the concept that defending the borders, defending the homeland from smugglers, traffickers and foreign NGOs and protecting our children is not a crime won. But a right.” It brought together traffickers and NGOs. And before him, the lawyer Bongiorno who had arrived with her trolleys full of folders, had not used very different words: «This is not a sentence against migrants. But against those who exploit migrants. The fullest acquittal formula was chosen.”

The entire defensive line was based on this assumption: it was not a kidnapping, because the migrants on board the Open Arms could have disembarked in Malta, Italy and Spain. “But they were exploited to fight a politically unwanted minister,” said the lawyer Bongiorno.

It was one of the longest days for Matteo Salvini. The future of his political career was based on this battle. Seven hours of deliberation before the verdict. He had slept in Mondello, he had done a live Instagram talking about anything. And he showed up in court at 9 in the morning, crossing a forest of cameras with these words: «I am absolutely proud of what I did. I opposed mass immigration. Whatever the sentence, it's a good day for me.” At that moment we saw two opposing worlds. Two ways of looking at this story and all of life. What took place in the bunker courtroom in Palermo was also a plastic image of the conflict between state powers in the year 2024. Separated by an invisible wall, much more than in other equally media-driven trials, the three prosecutors exchanged few formal words. While, on the other side, his party comrades had gathered around the minister. Senator Claudio Durigon: «I was in that government and I knew everything». The Minister of Education Giuseppe Valditara: «I am here for human closeness, I am here at my expense. Matteo is a friend.” And yes, there were also some other friends like Alessandro Morelli, undersecretary and former director of Radio Padania. His girlfriend Francesca Verdini was there kissing him every meter.

Rest at the Hotel Wagner, lunch at Spinnatowalking around the center of Palermo. There was even the man from Papeete, Massimo Casanova himself, the MEP owner of Matteo Salvini's favorite bathing establishment. «I think like seventy percent of Italians. Matteo is a victim of the system.”

It was the summer of 2019. The one with the mojitos in a swimsuit, the one with the Minister of the Interior of the yellow-green government. Salvini blocked the Open Arms ship in the middle of the sea. He brought down the government. He asked for full powers, and in the meantime he began to lose consensus. That story of that time has stopped here now, in this courtroom in Palermo, with an outcome that few would have predicted. He himself expressed himself in oxymorons: “I'm optimistic but worried.” And meanwhile he quoted Ezra Pound: “If a man is not willing to take a risk for his ideas, either his ideas are worth nothing or he is worth nothing.” Plot twist: the acquitted minister goes on stage.

Salvini says: «I move forward even more determined than before. This sentence not only absolves Matteo Salvini, but an idea of ​​the country. Entering Italy involves rules, limits and controls. And those who use migrants to wage a political battle have lost today.”

Oscar Camps, head of the Open Arms mission, thinks otherwise: «With this process, which is unique in Italian and European history, we wanted to restore dignity to the 147 people held on board and deprived of their freedom for 20 days, we asked for respect for our humanitarian work, too often denigrated and accused of being colluded with criminal actions”. It ended like this. With two ideas of the world. Never as distant as after the Palermo ruling.