“
Not a word against the traffickers of women and men, on the other hand the NGOs denounce me.
Forward, head held high and fearless
,” tweeted Matteo Salvini before the resumption of his trial, this Friday, December 2, 2022 in Palermo.
Less than a month after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni refused to let the Ocean Viking enter territorial waters, Matteo Salvini, now Minister of Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility, is appearing in a similar case that dates back to August 2019.
Salvini was then Minister of the Interior in the government of Guiseppe Conte.
The
Open Arms
, a ship from the eponymous Spanish NGO, picks up 147 migrants off Libya and heads for Italy.
From its anchorage, off the small island of Lampedusa in the south of Sicily, the ship asks to be assigned a "
safe port
" where it can disembark its passengers.
So far, the scenario is almost identical in all respects to the Ocean Viking affair which recently hit the headlines.
Matteo Salvini refuses for six days to welcome the ship.
An important legal precedent
Questioned by Le Figaro, Me François de Cambiaire, a lawyer who worked on a file for the NGO SOS Méditerranée, explained that Italy had used “
legal means.
To prohibit access to its ports, the country invokes the threat to public order, affirming that there are migrants in an illegal situation and that their access to the territory must therefore be restricted
.
But the international texts leave the assessment of a situation of distress to the host countries
”
,
explained the lawyer
.
“
Italy claims that there are no more people in distress on board because the most fragile have been taken care of and brought to the country in dribs and drabs.
VS'
".
Read alsoWas Italy obliged to welcome the illegal immigrants from the Ocean Viking?
On August 14, 2019, however, an Italian court order suspended the ban on the
Open Arms
from entering territorial waters, after having dispatched a mission to the site, to ascertain the seriousness of the health situation of the people present at edge.
In other words, the court creates a very important precedent: in such a situation, a migrant boat cannot constitute a danger to Italian national security.
The showdown with the executive continues, however, and the migrants will not disembark until August 20.
International law theoretically obliges the country responsible for the area where the rescue is carried out in the Mediterranean Sea (Libya in the case of the
Open Arms
) to coordinate the rescue, then to assign the ship a "
safe port
" where to disembark the rescuers.
immigrants.
But several countries, such as Libya, mostly leave calls from humanitarian ships unanswered.
The latter then find themselves in the situation of choosing for themselves which country to go to in order to request that a “
safe port
” be assigned to them.
Humanitarian ships, sometimes accused by their detractors of colluding with smugglers, generally make their way to European ports.
Up to 15 years in prison for forcible confinement and abuse of power
In 2020, the Senate votes to lift Matteo Salvini's parliamentary immunity, paving the way for his trial.
More than three years after the events, the former Minister of the Interior must now answer several charges, including those of sequestration of people and abuse of power.
He faces up to 15 years in prison.
At the start of the trial on October 23, 2021, Matteo Salvini denounced “
a political trial organized by the left
”.
"
I think being accused because I did my duty is absurd
," the statesman said.
According to the Italian newspaper
l'Espresso
, most of the time, such a decision is taken collectively by the government.
But this time it was reportedly taken by Salvini alone, while former Defense Minister Elisabetta Trenta and Infrastructure and Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli reportedly refused to sign the decree.
Read alsoIn Italy, the descent into hell of Matteo Salvini
American actor Richard Gere is also called to testify.
At the time of the incident in August 2019, he was on vacation in the area and had bought water and provisions before boarding as a sign of solidarity.
The court considered that his testimony could allow the judges to better appreciate the health situation of the migrants who were then on the
Open Arms
.
Matteo Salvini has several times mocked the presence of the actor at the trial, notably inviting him to welcome the migrants to his villa.
In another comparable case, the court had ordered the abandonment of the proceedings against Matteo Salvini, who was implicated for having refused to welcome the
Gregoretti
ship of the Italian coast guard, which had rescued a hundred migrants present in its edge.
The facts also took place during the summer of 2019. The new Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni declared war on NGOs and their "
pirate ships complicit in smugglers
" to make "
border defense
" a political marker.
Whatever its outcome, this trial is certainly a decisive legal battle in this confrontation.
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