Italy's Far-Right Salvini Acquitted In Migrant Blockade Trial

(MENAFN- The Peninsula) AFP

Palermo, Italy: An Italian court on Friday acquitted Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of illegally blocking migrants on a rescue ship at sea in 2019, for which he had risked six years in prison.

"I'm happy. After three years, common sense has won," the far-right leader, a member of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government, told reporters outside the court in Palermo.

Salvini was charged with 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.

The leader of the anti-immigration League party had refused to let the ship disembark the migrants it had rescued in the Mediterranean, as part of government efforts to stop irregular arrivals.

The stand-off lasted nearly three weeks and made global headlines, with other EU countries and humanitarian groups weighing in and even Hollywood actor Richard Gere visiting the ship in solidarity.

In the end, amid increasingly desperate sanitary conditions on board, the migrants were allowed to disembark on the Italian island of Lampedusa following a court order.

'Deprived of freedom'

Open Arms, the Spanish NGO which operates the eponymous rescue ship, expressed its "sadness for the people deprived of their freedom".

It said it would await the publication of the judges' reasons, due within 90 days, before deciding whether to appeal.

Open Arms founder Oscar Camps said that during that time, the rescues would continue in the Central Mediterranean, the world's deadliest known migration route.

"We will continue as always working in the sea, nothing changes," he told reporters.

Almost 1,700 migrants in the Central Mediterranean have been recorded as dead or missing by the UN's migration agency so far this year.

But Salvini said the judges had declared that "we did our duty, that fighting mass migration, fighting the organised and financed invasion is not a crime".

"Entering Italy requires rules, limits, controls, and those who use immigrants to wage political battles have lost today," he said.

Musk, Orban support

Meloni, whose hard-right government has also targeted charity rescue ships in its attempts to stop migrants arriving on Italy's shores, was quick to congratulate Salvini.

It was "a judgement that shows how unfounded and surreal the accusations against him were", she said in a statement.

In September, after prosecutors requested a six-year prison sentence for Salvini, Meloni had said it was "incredible" that Salvini risked jail "for doing his job defending the nation's borders".

Salvini has taken to social media to use the trial to whip up support for his party, which is languishing in the polls behind Meloni's far-right Brothers of Italy.

Many political allies sent their congratulations.

"Justice has prevailed!" Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on social media, while France's Marine Le Pen said she was "very relieved".

Elon Musk, the world's richest man who played a key role in Donald Trump's re-election as US president, wrote on X: "Bravo!"

'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 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.

But Salvini testified that he had understood that "the situation was not at risk" on board the ship.

He also 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 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 to stand trial after the Italian Senate in 2020 voted to strip him of his parliamentary immunity.

A similar trial, where he was accused of refusing to allow 116 migrants to disembark from the Italian coastguard boat Gregoretti in July 2019, was thrown out by a Catania court in 2021.

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