ITALIAN PROSECUTORS HAVE requested a six-year prison sentence for Matteo Salvini, Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister, for leaving 147 migrants at sea for weeks on a ship run by the Open Arms charity.

Salvini, a partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition, is on trial for alleged deprivation of liberty and abuse of office after blocking them from disembarking at one of the country’s ports in 2019.

Members of Open Arms have testified that the physical and mental wellbeing of people on the ship reached a crisis point as sanitary conditions onboard became dire, including a scabies outbreak. The vessel had only two toilets.

Open Arms described it at the time as an “extreme humanitarian emergency”. 

Some people who were on board went as far as jumping into the sea to try to escape the vessel and reach land but were rescued by crew members.

“The prosecution has asked for former interior minister Salvini to be sentenced to six years,” Open Arms’ lawyer Arturo Salerni told AFP, as the “long and difficult trial” nears an end.

A verdict in the trial, which began in October 2021, could come next month, he said.

Salvini would be free to appeal any decision.

Prosecutor Geri Ferrara told the Palermo court in Sicily that there was “one key principle that is not debatable”.

“Between human rights and the protection of state sovereignty, it is human rights that must prevail in our fortunately democratic system,” he said.

The ship was stuck at sea for nearly three weeks before the migrants were finally allowed to disembark on the island of Lampedusa following a court order.

“The POS (safe port) should have been provided immediately and without delay,” prosecutor Marzia Sabella said Saturday, according to Italian media reports.

“Refusing to do so was breaking the rules, not being in line with a government plan,” and Salvini’s “choices” had given rise to “chaos”, she said.

Salvini, head of the anti-immigration League party and interior minister at the time, testified in January that he had understood that “the situation was not at risk” onboard the ship.

A populist known for an “Italians first” policy, Salvini has repeatedly used attacks against illegal immigration to boost his political capital.

In 2019, serving under prime minister Giuseppe Conte, he implemented a “closed ports” policy under which Italy refused entry to charity ships that rescue migrants stranded while crossing the Mediterranean.

He cast it as a tough measure against traffickers who operate boats between North Africa and Italy and Malta, the deadliest migrant crossing in the world.

Much of the trial has been focused on determining whether the decision-making and responsibility in the case lay with the government that was in office at the time or with Salvini alone.

Salvini has previously faced a similar trial, accused of refusing to allow 116 migrants to disembark from an Italian coastguard boat in July 2019, but it was thrown out by a court in Catania in 2021.

© AFP 2024