Italian Justice acquits Salvini for the blockade of the ‘Open Arms’ ship

MADRID Dec. 20 () –

The Italian Justice has this Friday acquitted the Italian Minister of Transport, Matteo Salvini, for denying the disembarkation of 147 migrants rescued off Lampedusa aboard the ship ‘Open Arms’ in 2019 during his mandate as head of the Interior.

The second criminal section of the Palermo court, chaired by Roberto Murgia, announced the verdict after eight hours of deliberation. The Prosecutor’s Office had requested a prison sentence of six years, as reported by the AdnKronos news agency.

The case dates back to August 2019, when the NGO Open Arms asked the Italian authorities for a safe port where it could disembark the more than 160 migrants – 27 of them minors – that it had rescued in three different operations carried out in of the central Mediterranean.

The ship spent around twenty days at sea, seven of them off the coast of the island of Lampedusa, as a result of a dispute with the Government and, in particular, with Salvini, who promulgated a policy of ‘closed ports’ against to the ships of the organizations operating in the Mediterranean.

Salvini has based his defense on the need to shield Italy from irregular immigration, attributing a political nature to a trial that, according to him, calls into question whether a minister fulfills his duty. The Prosecutor’s Office, however, considers that the measure was exceeded and that there was no risk that justified blocking the migrants.