(Finance) – Il court of Palermo he acquitted Matthew Salvini In the Open Arms process because the fact does not exist. The charges were kidnapping And refusal of official acts at the trial for the affair of the Spanish NGO ship. According to the accusation, the deputy prime minister and minister of transport, in August 2019, while holding the position of minister of the Interior, unlawfully prevented the crew of the vessel from disembarking Lampedusa 147 migrants rescued at sea.
On 1 August 2019 the Open Arms ship rescued around 120 migrants in waters in the Libyan area, then requesting the assignment of a safe port both toItaly that a Malta. Salvini had decided to deny it by starting a tug-of-war with the ship’s commander. On August 9, the NGO’s lawyers then appealed to the juvenile court requesting the disembarkation of migrants who are not yet adults and submit the first complaint. A few hours later another group of 39 migrants was rescued on a damaged piece of wood.
On 12 August the Palermo court therefore decided to disembark the minors. The ship continued to sail towards Lampedusa, still asking Malta and Italy to be allowed to enter the port. The NGO therefore decided to resort to TAR of Lazio which on the eve of August 15th had suspended the entry ban. Open Arms then filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office of Agrigento claiming that, contrary to the administrative judge’s decision, Salvini continued to deny entry. On 20 August the prosecutor of Agrigento, Luigi Patronaggio, therefore decided to board the ship and seize it, overcoming the stalemate. On board, of the initial 164 rescued in Libyan SAR waters, after transfers for medical reasons, there were still 88 people rescued at sea.
The Agrigento Prosecutor’s Office at that point decided to initiate the investigationsenrolling Salvini in register of suspects. The crimes were kidnapping and refusal of official documents, in collaboration with his head of Cabinet Matthew Plant yourself. For jurisdiction, the papers are sent to the prosecutors of Palermo, as the Sicilian capital is the seat of the court of ministerswhich had formulated the accusation for Salvini (archiving that for Piantedosi). In 2020 the Senate gave the green light and on 17 April 2021 the preliminary hearing judge Lorenzo Jannelli ordered the indictment. The trial began on September 15, 2021 and has so far consisted of 24 hearings.
According to the reconstruction by Matteo Salvini “the first countries contacted and informed by Open Arms after the rescue operations were there Spain (Vessel’s flag country) e Malta (area closest to the save point). Italy had no competence and no obligation with reference to all the rescues carried out by the Spanish ship Open Arms as they occurred entirely outside of its areas of relevance”https://www.Finance.it/DettaglioNews/219_2024- 12-20_TLB/.”Open Arms asked Italy for the POS on the evening of August 2nd but – according to Salvini’s defense – it cannot fall on the State Italian the burden of a response competence of other states. Open Arms could head to other countries that had the obligation to welcome it.”
There defense of Matteo Salvini highlighted that the migrants on board Open Arms were detained on the ship by activists from the Spanish NGO. “The lawyer Giulia Bongiorno documented the countless opportunities and possibilities offered to the NGO to bring people down: opportunities and possibilities not scientifically grasped, because Open Arms wanted to decide how and when to disembark everyone in Italy.
Also to create a problem for what the NGO considers a real political opponent, namely Matteo Salvini”, he argued.