An Italian court on Friday acquitted Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of illegally blocking migrants on a rescue ship in 2019, after a lengthy and high-profile trial.”I’m happy. After three years, common sense has won,” the leader of the far-right, anti-immigration League party told reporters outside the court in Palermo.Salvini had strongly denied charges of abuse of office and the deprivation of liberty of 147 migrants on board the Open Arms charity ship in August 2019, when he was interior minister in a previous government.Now a partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition, the 51-year-old had back then refused to let the ship disembark the migrants it had rescued in the Mediterranean.The stand-off lasted nearly three weeks and made global headlines, with other EU nations offering to take the migrants, humanitarian groups weighing in and even Hollywood actor Richard Gere visiting the ship in solidarity.In the end, the migrants were allowed to disembark on the Italian island of Lampedusa following a court order.”Entering Italy requires rules, limits, controls, and those who use immigrants to wage political battles have lost today,” Salvini said outside court.He said the judges had declared that “we did our duty, that fighting mass migration, fighting the organised and financed invasion is not a crime”.- Musk, Orban support -Meloni, whose hard-right government also has targeted charity rescue ships in its attempts to stop migrants arriving on Italy’s shores, was quick to express her delight at the verdict.It was “a judgement that shows how unfounded and surreal the accusations against him were”.In September, after prosecutors requested a six-year prison sentence, the prime minister said it was “incredible” that Salvini risked jail “for doing his job defending the nation’s borders”.Nationalist politicians across Europe also have weighed in on Salvini’s behalf, from France’s Marine Le Pen to Hungary’s Viktor Orban.Orban tweeted: “Justice for Salvini” on Thursday alongside a photo of himself and others holding up t-shirts emblazoned with Salvini’s face in a mock-up “Wanted” poster.”Crazy that Salvini is being tried for defending Italy!” added Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, on the X social platform that he owns.- ‘Closed ports’ -An outspoken politician known for an “Italians first” policy, Salvini has repeatedly used attacks against illegal immigration to boost his political capital.In 2019, serving in a coalition government led by Giuseppe Conte, he implemented a “closed ports” policy under which Italy refused entry to charity ships rescuing migrants making the often deadly sea crossing from North Africa.Salvini claimed he was protecting Italy with his security law, casting it as a tough measure against traffickers who organise the often overcrowded boats.Members of Open Arms testified that the migrants’ physical and mental wellbeing on board the ship had reached a crisis point, with dire sanitary conditions including a scabies outbreak.But Salvini testified that he had understood that “the situation was not at risk” on board the ship.He also has insisted that the entire Conte government was behind the migration policy, and that it was not just his decision.The verdict, more than three years after the trial opened in October 2021, comes as Meloni’s government faces judicial challenges to its own migration policy.The prime minister, head of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, has criticised judges who have ruled against her attempts to fast-track asylum applications, including in two new Italian-run centres in Albania.Salvini was cleared for the trial after the Italian Senate in 2020 voted to strip him of his parliamentary immunity.
Fri, 20 Dec 2024 19:26:51 GMT
