Matteo Salvini, Italy’s right-wing deputy prime minister, is hitting back after Italian prosecutors requested on Saturday a six-year prison sentence against him for blocking migrants from disembarking at one of the country’s ports in 2019.
“Six years in prison for blocking landings and defending Italy and Italians? Madness. Defending Italy is not a crime and I will not give up, not now, not ever,” Salvini wrote on X.
Salvini, a partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition, is on trial for alleged “deprivation of liberty and abuse of office” for preventing the Lampedusa landing of the Open Arms ship run by a Spanish NGO and “keeping 147 migrants at sea for weeks.” In a video message on X, the deputy prime minister described in detail the events leading up to his decision to prevent the landing in Italy:
On July 29, 2019, a Spanish NGO ship, the Open Arms, sets said from Syracuse headed to Lampedusa. It will never reach Lampedusa. Suddenly, it deletes its destination from the logbook and heads towards the Libyan coast.
On August 1st, it manages to intercept a boat with illegal immigrants on board. From that moment, it begins to sail through the Mediterranean picking up more illegal immigrants and heading towards Italy. On August 20th, it arrives off the coast of Sicily with 164 illegal immigrants on board.
In the preceding days, it had stubbornly refused every request for help, assistance, or disembarkation at ports other than Italian ones. They said no to Tunisia, they said no to Malta, they even said no to the flag state, namely Spain. More than twenty days of sailing in the Mediterranean while holding all these illegal immigrants on board when it would have taken just 72 hours to reach Spain.
This Spanish ship refused, not once, but twice to disembark the illegal immigrants at two ports made available by Spain. and even refused the aid of a military ship sent by the Spanish government.
During the Mediterranean journey of the Open Arms, we always rescued and disembarked sick people, pregnant women, and minors on board.
Together with my government colleagues, I had signed the ban on entering Italian territorial waters. Thanks to my government’s actions, landings, deaths, and disappearances in the Mediterranean Sea decreased. In the year before I took office, there had been 42,700 illegal landings. During my tenure at the Ministry of the Interior, arrivals were reduced to 8,691. After me, unfortunately, the landings went back up, exceeding 21,000 in the same period.
This Spanish ship was never prevented from going anywhere, except to Italy because we could no longer be the refugee camp for all of Europe. No government and no minister in history has ever been accused or put on trial for defending the borders of his own country.
Article 52 of the Italian Constitution states: “The defence of the Homeland is a sacred duty for every citizen.”
I declare myself guilty of defending Italy and Italians. I declare myself guilty of keeping the promise I made.
“The prosecution has asked for former interior minister Salvini to be sentenced to six years,” Open Arms’ lawyer Arturo Salerni told AFP, as the “long and difficult trial” nears an end.
A verdict in the trial, which began in October 2021, could come next month, he said. Salvini would be free to appeal any decision.
Prime Minister Meloni also criticised the prosecutors and vowed to continue to support Salvini. “It is incredible that a minister of the Italian Republic risks 6 years in prison for doing his job defending the nation’s borders, as required by the mandate received from its citizens,” she wrote on X. “Transforming into a crime the duty to protect the Italian borders from illegal immigration is a very serious precedent. My total solidarity with Minister Salvini.”
Fellow deputy premier and leader of the centre-right Forza Italia, Antonio Tajani also defended Salvini. “Matteo Salvini did his duty as interior minister to defend the law,” Tajani wrote on X. “Asking for 6 years in prison for this seems unreasonable and moreover without any legal basis.”
French right-wing leader Marine Le Pen also offered Salvini a message of support on Saturday night, alleging he was the target of “judicial harassment aimed at silencing him.”
For wanting to put an end to migrant smuggling and protect Italy’s borders when he was interior minister, Matteo Salvini has been subjected to judicial harassment aimed at silencing him. The trial and the 6-year sentence requested against him are extremely serious at a time when migratory flooding is increasing throughout Europe. We stand by you, Matteo, in solidarity and more than ever.
Salvini thanked her and promised not to “give in”.
Prosecutor Geri Ferrara told the Palermo court in Sicily that there was “one key principle that is not debatable.”
“Between human rights and the protection of state sovereignty, it is human rights that must prevail in our fortunately democratic system,” he said.
The ship was at sea for nearly three weeks before a court ordered the disembarkation of the illegal migrants on the island of Lampedusa.
Members of Open Arms have testified that the migrants’ physical and mental well-being reached a ‘crisis point’ as sanitary conditions onboard became dire, including a scabies outbreak. Salvini, interior minister at the time, testified in January that he had understood that “the situation was not at risk” onboard the ship.
“The POS (safe port) should have been provided immediately and without delay,” prosecutor Marzia Sabella said Saturday, according to Italian media reports.
In 2019, serving under Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Salvini implemented a “closed ports” policy under which Italy refused entry to NGO ‘migrant rescue’ ships stranded while crossing the Mediterranean. This was a tough measure against traffickers who operate boats between North Africa and Italy and Malta, the deadliest migrant crossing in the world. And, as Salvini points out in his video message, it worked. “Thanks to my government’s actions, landings, deaths, and disappearances in the Mediterranean Sea decreased. In the year before I took office, there had been 42,700 illegal landings. During my tenure at the Ministry of the Interior, arrivals were reduced to 8,691. After me, unfortunately, the landings went back up, exceeding 21,000 in the same period. “
Much of the trial has been focused on determining whether the decision-making and responsibility in the case lay with the Conte government or Salvini alone.
Salvini previously faced a similar trial, accused of refusing to allow 116 migrants to disembark from an Italian coastguard boat in July 2019. But it was thrown out by a court in Catania in 2021.
