Salvini had risked six years in jail for ‘kidnapping’ migrants before acquittal in December.
The Palermo public prosecutor’s office has filed an appeal to the supreme court of cassation against the acquittal of Italian deputy premier Matteo Salvini in the Open Arms case.
Salvini, leader of the right-wing Lega party, had been accused of “kidnapping” 147 migrants by preventing the Spanish Open Arms rescue ship from landing of the island of Lampedusa in 2019.
He had risked six years in jail on charges of abduction and refusal to perform official duties over his role, as then interior minister, of refusing to grant permission for the ship carrying the rescued migrants to dock, as part of his controversial closed-ports policy.
Following his acquittal, Salvini said that defending Italy and its borders “is not a crime”, an expression he used again on Friday after the news broke that prosecutors were seeking to overturn December’s ruling.
Salvini, 52, said he was confident the acquittal would be upheld, stressing that there “was no felony” and adding: “Evidently someone is not resigned to this – let’s move on: I’m not worried.”
Italy’s right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday once again rushed to defend Salvini.
“It’s surreal, this relentless pursuit, after a failed three-year trial – against a minister who wanted to enforce the law – concluded with a full acquittal” – Meloni wrote on X – “I wonder what Italians think of all this energy and resources spent in this way, while thousands of honest citizens await justice.”
Background to the case
After Salvini refused to grant the ship permission to dock, the migrants were stuck on the Spanish rescue ship Open Arms for 19 days off the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Last September, after prosecutors sought the six-year jail term, Salvini received the “total solidarity” of Meloni who stated: “Transforming the duty to protect the Italian borders from illegal immigration into a crime is a very serious precedent.”
Salvini was also defended by his fellow deputy premier and leader of the centre-right Forza Italia, Antonio Tajani, as well as from X owner Elon Musk who commented: “That mad prosecutor should be the one who goes to prison for 6 years.”
Salvini insisted that preventing irregular migrants from disembarking in Italy was government policy at the time, claiming that the decision to block the Open Arms ship was reached collectively within the government.
Photo credit: Pierre Teyssot / Shutterstock.com.
