PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) – Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini was defending Italian interests and should be acquitted of charges of kidnapping a boat full of migrants who were held offshore for almost three weeks in 2019, his lawyer said on Friday.
Prosecutors have demanded a six-year jail term for Salvini, who heads the far-right League party. He was interior minister at the time and used his powers to prevent a charity rescue ship carrying 147 asylum seekers from docking at Lampedusa.
In her final summing up, Salvini’s lawyer Giulia Bongiorno said boats did not have an automatic right to berth in Italy and the migrants could have been taken elsewhere if the Spanish charity had been really concerned for their welfare.
“In August 2019, minister Salvini was fighting a battle, but certainly not against migrants who were taken care of and protected,” Bongiorno told the court, saying that he was instead battling to defend Italy’s overburdened coastguards.
“There is no right to… choose how, when and where to disembark migrants,” she said.
The Open Arms charity could have sailed directly to its home country Spain, she said.
“Open Arms had countless opportunities to land migrants (elsewhere) but refused countless, countless, countless times.”
The ship picked up the mainly African migrants off the coast of Libya over a two week period and refused to go to Spain, as Salvini demanded, saying those on board were too exhausted to confront the three-day voyage and needed immediate care.
Magistrates eventually intervened and gave the boat a berth. They subsequently accused Salvini of kidnapping and dereliction of duty – charges that can carry up to 15 years in jail.
Salvini was implementing a “closed ports” policy for rescue ships at the time, accusing them of working in cahoots with people smugglers and helping draw hundreds of thousands of migrants to Italy – something the charities deny.
Salvini has received strong vocal support from far-right parties across Europe this past month, who have portrayed him as a hero in their fight against irregular immigration.
“(Salvini) deserves a medal for defending Europe,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on X on Friday.
Almost all the League’s 94 elected parliamentarians staged a protest in the Sicilian capital on Friday in support of their leader – including Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti.
Salvini has said he will not stand down from his current role as transport minister if found guilty, but will appeal. Under Italian law, defendants have a right to two appeals – a process that can take years to complete.
“I am convinced I am right,” he said last month.
No date has yet been set for sentencing.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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