[ad_1]
If found guilty, leaders of the Right-wing Coalition Party could face up to 15 years in prison.
Matteo Salvini, the former Italian Minister of the Interior, will stand trial in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, on Saturday for his role in preventing the Open Arms immigrant rescue ship from docking at Italian ports in 2019.
The prosecution accused Salvini of being deprived of liberty and abuse of power. Prevent During his tenure as minister, ships of Spanish aid organizations were not allowed to enter the port.
If found guilty, the leader of the right-wing coalition party, who has accumulated most of the political wealth in the anti-immigration movement, could face up to 15 years in prison.
Salvini served as Minister of the Interior in the first cabinet of former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte from June 2018 to September 2019.
Al Jazeera reporter Adam Rani from Rome said that the prosecutor had submitted “a list of more than two dozen witnesses in order to testify in this trial.”
“They are very eye-catching, including Conte and actor Richard Gere, because he volunteered to serve on one of the ships for a while,” Rani said.
“We also want Salvini to show up,” he added.
Tomorrow in Palermo 🇮🇹 former minister #Salvini Will face trial for kidnapping and refusal to release #OpenArms, There are more than 150 rescued people on board, ready to board #Lampedusa period #Mission65 August 2019. But he will not appear in court alone… pic.twitter.com/S9lw2Yzpzr
— Open Arms ENG (@openarms_found) October 22, 2021
According to information provided by aid organizations, in August 2019, the Open Arms ship rescued more than 150 people in distress in the Mediterranean during the three interventions that began on August 1.
It has been parked near the island of Lampedusa in Italy from about mid-August, but it is not allowed to park. As desperate people kept jumping into the water and trying to swim ashore, the sanitation and tension on the ship reached a peak.
Finally, the Office of the Prosecutor arranged to seize the Open Arms after the inspection on the ship, which means that it can connect with the remaining immigrants.
Salvini has repeatedly emphasized that his actions are to defend the interests of Italy and the government. The trial officially began on September 15 but was immediately postponed to October 23 as expected.
The leader is too Under investigation Another similar stalemate involved the Italian Coast Guard’s Gregoretti, which Salvini refused to allow to dock in the summer of 2019.
[ad_2]
Source link