AFPItalian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini was acquitted in a long-running lawsuit over charges he refused to allow a migrant rescue ship to dock in Italy in 2019.
Judges in the Sicilian city of Palermo acquitted him of two counts of kidnapping and dereliction of duty after prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of six years.
Salvini, leader of the right-wing Lega party and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government ally, has always maintained that he was guilty because he only wanted to “protect Italy.”
“I have kept my promises by fighting mass immigration and reducing departures, landings and deaths at sea,” he told reporters outside court on Friday.
Upon hearing the verdict, Salvini clenched his fists in victory and hugged his girlfriend, Francesca Verdini, Ansa news agency reported.
The trial began in September 2021, focusing on an incident in which Interior Minister Salvini attempted to stop illegal immigrants crossing the Mediterranean by blocking Italian ports.
He ordered an NGO ship called Open Arms to be prevented from docking on the island of Lampedusa after picking up 147 migrants off the Libyan coast.
Open Arms remained at sea for nearly three weeks, and the health situation of the migrants on board deteriorated significantly.
Eventually, Luigi Patronaggio, the prosecutor of Agrigento in Sicily, inspected the vessel and, noting “difficult conditions on board,” ordered its precautionary seizure.
The Open Arms captain and some of those rescued at sea were civil parties in the case, which began in September 2021.
The three female prosecutors involved in the case are under police protection after receiving harassment and threats online.
One of them, Geri Ferrara, told the court in September that human rights should take precedence over “protection of national sovereignty.”
“People stranded at sea must be rescued and it doesn’t matter whether they are migrants, seafarers or passengers,” she said.
Salvini claimed that Giuseppe Conte’s government at the time fully supported Italy’s “port closure” mission to NGO rescue ships.
In recent months, the deputy prime minister has frequently mentioned the trial and future ruling in social media posts, public speeches and interviews.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sided with the deputy prime minister, saying there was “solidarity” between him and his government.
“Converting the obligation to protect Italy’s borders from illegal immigration into a crime sets a very serious precedent,” she posted on X earlier this year.
ReutersAfter the verdict, Veneto regional governor and Lega party colleague Luca Zaia said justice had been done.
“Salvini acted in the legitimate interests of our country and fully respected his institutional responsibilities,” he wrote on Facebook.
Salvini came under criticism after saying Italy’s judiciary was ‘politicized’ and that some magistrates were ‘clearly following left-wing politics’.
Eli Schlein, leader of the center-left opposition Democratic Party, accused him of “spreading propaganda and fomenting serious institutional conflict.”
Members of Salvini’s Lega party have rallied around him. On Wednesday, Lega MEPs appeared at a European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg wearing T-shirts that read “Guilty in the defense of Italy,” a slogan used by Salvini in the past.
Current Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Friday that whatever ruling is handed down will not affect the government.
But Lega’s deputy Andrea Crippa warned that a guilty verdict “is tantamount to convicting the entire Italian people, the Italian parliament and the elected government.”
Others outside of Italy have also entered the debate.
Elon Musk said on Twitter, “That crazy prosecutor should go to jail for 6 years,” and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a close ally of Salvini, called the trial “a shame.”
