A new hearing of the “Open Arms” trial, opened in October 2021, was held in the bunker room of the Ucciardone prison in Palermo. It was dedicated to the hearing of Matteo Salvini, former Minister of the Interior, in the Conte government (June 2018-September 2019) and current Minister of Infrastructure and Transport. Accused of kidnapping of people and abuse of power for having blocked at sea for 19 days, in the summer of 2019, a Spanish NGO ship which had rescued nearly 150 migrants, the head of the Anti-Migrant League and ally of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, faces up to 15 years in prison.
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With our correspondent in Rome, Anne Le Nir
The NGO Open Arms requested a disembarkation port in Italy on August 2, 2019, the day after two migrant rescue operations off the coast of Libya. But the ban on docking in an Italian port was enforced by Matteo Salvini.
The case could only be resolved on August 20 following the intervention of the prosecutor of Agrigento, in Sicily, ordering the disembarkation of migrants in Lampedusa for health and psychological reasons.
Accompanied by his lawyer Giulia Bongiorno, Matteo Salvini affirmed that he had “done a service to Italy by defending the security and borders of the country” and that his “ position was shared by the entire government », directed by Giuseppe Conte.
When Judge Marzia Sabella asked him if he knew that some migrants had thrown themselves into the water, he replied: I don’t remember it. For me, everything was under control “. The former Minister of the Interior also declared that “not authorizing the disembarkation was a way of exerting pressure to conclude an agreement on the redistribution of migrants with other European countries”.
The next hearing has been set for February 16.
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