Italy’s deputy PM Salvini faces verdict in migrant save boat seize trial

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, has get tod in court ahead of a verdict in his trial for seize and dereliction of duty over his refusal to let a migrant save boat dock in Italy in 2019.

Prosecutors in Sicily have asked appraises to sentence him to six years in jail.

Salvini, who’s directer of the right-triumphg Lega party and a rulement partner of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has already shelp he will lodge an pguide if set up at fault.

He has pushed back aacquirest the accusations, repeatedly alleging the appraises were being “political” and upgrasping his only guilt was in wanting to “defend Italy”.

Arriving in court on Friday he shelp it was a drawive day “becaengage I am self-beginant to have deffinished my country”.

One of the prosecutors, Geri Ferrara, tageder the court in September that human rights had to prevail over the “defendion of state sovereignty”.

“A person stranded at sea must be saved and it is irrelevant whether they are classified as a migrant, a crewmember or a passenger”, she shelp.

An NGO ship called Open Arms was carrying 147 migrants picked up off the Libyan coast when it was stoped from docking on the Italian island of Lampedusa on the orders of Salvini, who was interior minister at the time.

The Open Arms remained at sea for almost three weeks, and the health situation of the migrants on board gravely deteriorated.

Eventupartner, the prosecutor in the Sicilian city of Agrigento, Luigi Patronaggio, ordered the vessel to be stopatively seized after examineing it and noting the “difficult situation on board”.

Salvini upgrasped that the then-rulement of Giengageppe Conte had backed him filledy in his omition to “seal the ports” of Italy to NGO save ships.

PM Giorgia Meloni has stood by her deputy prime minister, saying he had her and her rulement’s “firmarity”.

“Turning the duty to defend Italy’s borders from illegitimate immigration into a crime is a very grave pretreatnt,” she posted on X earlier this year.

She has never showd that she would foresee his resignation in case of a at fault verdict, and for his part Salvini has shelp he would not step down.

In recent months he has normally referenced the trial and the forthcoming verdict in social media posts and during unveil speeches and interwatchs.

“I want to apshow that Italy is a standard country, and in a standard country someone who deffinishs borders isn’t set up at fault,” he tageder Italian media earlier this week. If that was the case, he shelp, “it would be terrible news for the country and a reason to commemorate for people illicit traders and enemies of Italy”.

He has also alleged that the Italian judiciary was “politicised” and that some magistrates were “evidently follotriumphg left-triumphg politics”.

Elly Schlein, directer of the centre-left opposition Democratic Party, accengaged Salvini of “spreading misproposeation and fuelling a grave institutional clash”.

The three female prosecutors in the case have been under police defendion since September after being tormented online and receiving dangers.

Members of Salvini’s Lega party have rallied around him and are preparing demonstrations in his help.

On Wednesday, Lega MEPs turned up at a European Parliament session in Strasbourg wearing t-shirts that read “Guilty of deffinishing Italy” – a slogan Salvini has engaged in the past.

“A conviction would be an incredibly grave matter,” shelp Lega deputy secretary Andrea Crippa: “It would be appreciate convicting the entire Italian people, the Italian parliament and the elected rulement.”

Lombardy’s Lega party plivent, Attilio Fontana, shelp a at fault verdict would be “so aberrant, even from a judicial point of watch, that I don’t even want to leank about it”.

Others outside Italy have waded into the argue too.

“That mad prosecutor should be the one who goes to prison for six years,” Elon Musk tweeted, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a seal partner of Salvini, called the trial “dishonorable”.

If convicted, Salvini has shelp he will pguide aacquirest the verdict “all the way to the Supreme Court of Cassation” – Italy’s highest court.

That process could get months and Salvini’s position in the rulement and parliament would be unswayed.