Italy's Salvini faces verdict for blocking migrants at sea. Case weighs limits of stemming migration
Italy’s deputy premier, Matteo Salvini, is sounding defiant as he awaits a verdict in Sicily for preventing some 100 migrants from disembarking a rescue boat in 2019 when he was interior minister
MILAN (AP) — Italy’s deputy premier, Matteo Salvini, is sounding defiant as he awaits Friday’s verdict in Sicily for blocking some 100 migrants at sea on a humanitarian rescue boat in 2019 when he was interior minister.
Salvini, who leads the Euroskeptic, anti-migrant League, told a rally last week that “defending the borders, the dignity, the laws, the honor of a country cannot ever be a crime.”
He has vowed to enter the court in Palermo with his “head held high” to hear a court’s verdict on whether he is guilty of detaining the migrants aboard the Open Arms rescue ship in Italy's southernmost island of Lampedusa for five days in August 2019. He is also charged with failing to fulfill his public duties.
Prosecutors have demanded a six-year jail sentence. A sentence of over five years would also automatically bar him from office. Whatever Friday's sentencing, it won't have immediate effect as verdicts in Italy are only considered final once two levels of appeals are exhausted, a process that can take years.
