Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, arrived in court before a verdict was handed down on his case of theft and neglect of duty for refusing to allow a rescue boat to enter Italy in 2019.
Prosecutors in Sicily have asked the judges to sentence him to 6 years in prison.
Salvini, who is the leader of the far-right Lega party and an ally of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government, has previously said he would appeal if found guilty.
He has rejected the accusations, repeatedly saying that the judges were “political” and that keeping his case was to “protect Italy”.
When he arrived in court on Friday he said it was a good day “because I am proud to have defended my country”.
One of the plaintiffs, Geri Ferrara, told the court in September that human rights should go beyond “the protection of state authority”.
“A person lost at sea must be rescued and it does not matter whether they are considered a migrant, a worker or a passenger,” he said.
The ship Open Arms was carrying 147 refugees off the coast of Libya when it was banned from stopping at the Italian island of Lampedusa by order of Salvini, who was the interior minister at the time.
The Open Arms had been at sea for about three weeks, and the health of the emigrants had taken a turn for the worse.
Later, the governor of the Sicilian city of Agrigento, Luigi Patronaggio, ordered the vessel to be seized after a close inspection and saw “difficulties on board”.
Salvini also said that Giuseppe Conte’s government fully supported him in his mission to “close the ports” of Italy to NGO rescue ships.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stood by her deputy, saying that she has a “cooperation” between her and her government.
“Turning the duty to protect Italy’s borders against illegal immigration into a crime is a very bad example,” he wrote on X earlier this year.
He has never said he expects to resign if convicted, and Salvini for his part has said he won’t.
In recent months, he has frequently mentioned the case and the upcoming verdict on social media and in public.
“I want to believe that Italy is a normal country, and in a normal country the person who guards the border is not found guilty,” he told Italian media earlier this week. If that were the case, he said, “it would be bad news for the country and a reason to celebrate the smugglers and enemies of Italy”.
He also said that the Italian judiciary was “political” and that some judges were “clearly following left-wing politics”.
Elly Schlein, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party, accused Salvini of “spreading lies and creating serious conflicts”.
The three female lawyers in the case have been under police protection since September after receiving online harassment and threats.
Members of Salvini’s Lega party have rallied around him and are planning demonstrations in support of him.
On Wednesday, Lega MEPs arrived at a meeting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg wearing T-shirts that said “It’s a mistake to protect Italy” – a slogan Salvini has used in the past.
“Judgment would be a serious problem,” Lega deputy secretary Andrea Crippa said: “It would be like judging all Italians, the Italian parliament and the elected government.”
The president of Lombardy’s Lega party, Attilio Fontana, said a guilty verdict “will be so disturbing, even in the light of criminal proceedings, that I don’t want to think about it”.
Others outside Italy also joined the fray.
“That crazy prosecutor is the one who will spend six years in prison,” Elon Musk said, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a close ally of Salvini, called the case “disgraceful”.
If convicted, Salvini said he would appeal against the decision “all the way to the Supreme Court of Cassation” – Italy’s highest court.
This could take several months and Salvini’s position in the government and parliament will not be affected.
