Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has been acquitted of kidnapping and dereliction of duty charges after blocking a Spanish rescue ship from docking in 2019, which resulted in migrants being stranded at sea for several days.
The case dates back to Salvini’s tenure as interior minister under Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s government from 2018 to 2019. Early in his tenure, Salvini closed Italian ports to rescue ships involved in saving people fleeing Libya, leading to 25 standoffs between rescue vessels and Italian authorities.
One such standoff occurred in August 2019 when Salvini prevented the humanitarian rescue boat Open Arms, carrying 147 refugees, from docking. The ship was forced to anchor off Lampedusa Island for days under worsening conditions, which led to a scabies outbreak. Some passengers, in desperation, jumped overboard, and the captain pleaded for a nearby safe port. After 19 days, a local prosecutor ordered the passengers to be allowed to disembark.
Salvini was subsequently investigated for kidnapping and dereliction of duty after the incident, which occurred shortly before he was removed from his role as interior minister.
“I have kept my promises, combating mass immigration and reducing departures, landings and deaths at sea,” Salvini said on Friday before the ruling.
Prosecutors, seeking a six-year prison sentence, argued that saving lives at sea is a state responsibility that overrides international agreements on irregular migration. However, after a three-year trial with 45 witnesses, including actor Richard Gere, who showed solidarity with those on board the ship, judges in Palermo concluded that the evidence presented was insufficient to convict Salvini.
Salvini, now serving as infrastructure and transport minister and deputy prime minister in Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition government, always denied the charges, asserting that his actions were taken to “defend Italy’s borders.” After the verdict, Salvini expressed his satisfaction: “Today is a beautiful day for Italy. Today the judges have said that we have done our duty, that defending the borders is not a crime but a right.”
Before the ruling, he called on supporters to protest what he described as a “political trial.”
