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News > Italy

Italy: Ex-Interior Minister’s Trial Begins for Abuse of Power

  •  Immigration officers help a group of migrants from North Africa to disembark in Lampedusa, Italy, Aug. 3, 2020.

    Immigration officers help a group of migrants from North Africa to disembark in Lampedusa, Italy, Aug. 3, 2020. | Photo: EFE

Published 23 October 2021
Opinion

In 2019, Matteo Salvini blocked for six days the entrance of 147 migrants who had bad health conditions on board a ship owned by NGO Open Arms.

On Saturday, a trial against far-right politician Matteo Salvini started in Italy, where he is accused of illegally blockading 147 migrants at sea in 2019 when was the Interior Ministry. 

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Charges against Salvini are connected to kidnapping and abuse of power for having prohibited the disembarkation of migrants who were rescued in the Mediterranean Sea by the Spanish NGO Open Arms in August 2019.

Last year, the Senate lifted Salvini's parliamentary immunity, paving the way for him to stand trial. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.

The former Interior Minister alleged that the decision was agreed upon with the government, including with the ex-Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. 

For six days, Salvini refused to grant permission to dock in a safe port to the Open Arms' ship, which anchored off the Italian island of Lampedusa as conditions of people on board worsened.

The migrants were allowed to disembark thanks to an order issued by the Sicilian judiciary at the end of an inspection which confirmed the health emergency and the overcrowding inside the ship.

"Saving people is not a crime, but an obligation not only of the captains but of the whole state," Open Arms founder and director Oscar Campsel said.

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