ROME (AP) – A judge on Saturday ordered former Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to stand trial on kidnapping charges for refusing to dock a Spanish migrant rescue ship in an Italian port in 2019, causing the people were at sea for days.
Judge Lorenzo Iannelli set September 15 as a trial date during a hearing in the Palermo bunker courtroom in Sicily.
Salvini, who attended the hearing, insisted that he was only doing his job and his duty by refusing access to the rescue ship Open Arms and the 147 people it had rescued in the Mediterranean.
“I’m going to go for this because I’ve defended my country?” he tweeted after the decision. “I go with my head held high, also in your name.”
Palermo prosecutors have accused Salvini of dereliction of duty and kidnapping for keeping the migrants at sea for days off the Italian island of Lampedusa in August 2019. port. Finally, after a 19-day ordeal, the remaining 83 migrants still on board were allowed to disembark at Lampedusa.
Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party, had maintained a hardline on migration as interior minister during Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s first reign from 2018-2019. While demanding that European Union countries do more to take in migrants arriving in Italy, Salvini argued that humanitarian rescue ships were only encouraging Libyan traffickers. He claimed that his policy of denying them port actually saved lives by discouraging the risky travel across the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe.
His attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, said she was serene despite the decision, saying she was confident the court would ultimately rule that no kidnapping had taken place.
“There was no restriction on their freedom,” she told reporters after the charges were settled. The ship had the ability to go anywhere. There was only a prohibition to enter the port. But it had 100,000 options. ”
Open Arms, for its part, praised the decision to take Salvini to court, confirming that it has registered as a civil party in the case, along with some survivors of the rescue, the city of Barcelona where Open Arms is located, and other humanitarian aid. groups.
The group’s founder, Oscar Camps, said the decision to prosecute Salvini for actions he took while he was home secretary was “historic”, showing that European political leaders can be held responsible for disrespecting the human rights of migrants.
“This lawsuit is a reminder to Europe and the world that there are principles of individual responsibility in politics,” Camps told a news conference on Saturday. The decision to prosecute shows that “it is possible to identify the responsibility of the protagonists of this tragedy at sea.”
Salvini is also being investigated for another similar stalemate with migrants involving the Italian coastguard vessel Gregoretti, which he refused to dock in the summer of 2019.
The prosecutor in that case in Catania, Sicily, Andrea Bonomo, last week advised Salvini not to be brought to trial, arguing that he only pursued government policy when he kept the 116 migrants at sea for five days.
Italy and other southern EU countries such as Spain and Greece have long argued that other members of the 27-country bloc should do more to help them cope with the influx of migrants.
Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration