A Sicilian magistrate must rule on a case involving the crews of several relief ships, including that of the Iuventa, run by the German NGO Jugend Rettet. In February, prosecutors requested that the case be dismissed, a request that the Trapani preliminary hearings judge is expected to follow on Friday.
The affair was marked by the wiretapping of lawyers and journalists. Italian authorities began showing interest in NGOs in 2016, when the center-left government was grappling with a sharp increase in the number of migrants arriving on its shores. It was a former police officer working as a security guard on the Save the Children ship Vos Hestia who first reported rumors that the NGOs were working with human traffickers. The case was split into several separate proceedings last year, and ten crew members from the three ships remain involved in the case decided Friday, Save the Children, MSF, and the shipping company which owned the ship said on Thursday. It remains unclear whether the crew members will be sent to trial or if the case will be dismissed.