In front of the audience of his fans, interviewed on stage by Maria Giovanna Maglie, Matteo Salvini warms up the square on the eve of the preliminary hearing that tomorrow morning will see him appear before the judge Nunzio Sarpietro on charges of aggravated kidnapping of the 131 migrants taken in aboard Gregoretti on 25 July 2019 e held for six days before being able to disembark at the port of Augusta.
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Salvini trial
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“I will not speak in front of the Gup. I am calm, I think I have done my duty, I have total faith in Italian justice. I will not speak, we wrote that we saved lives, no one was hurt and no one was hurt no one is given honor to Italy, respected the laws and woke up Europe. We are in a democracy, can we talk about art in Catania? I have full confidence in the judiciary “, said the Northern League leader.
Catania is armored. The Committee for order and security chaired by the prefect Claudio Sammartino has put in place an imposing protective device, as many as 500 men including policemen, carabinieri and financial police also coming from Campania and Puglia to prevent the atmosphere around the Courthouse (where it will be forbidden to enter tomorrow) gets hot. In fact, there are not only the troops of parliamentarians and political exponents of various levels of the center-right, gathered by the League at the New Customs by the leader of the League for a three-day meeting which was formally convened only to talk about politics and the upcoming administrative in some Sicilian municipalities but which – in fact – will attract buses of green flags from all over Sicily who have, however, been warmly asked not to demonstrate in support of their leader near the court.
To keep at bay there will be the counter-protesters, those of the network “Never with Salvini”: inside there is everything, from the Democratic Party to the social centers that tomorrow morning (in the same hours of the hearing) will parade in a protest march. It is easy for the spark to explode at the slightest provocation between the two sides.
Gregoretti case, Salvini’s defense: “There was no kidnapping”
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It is therefore better to close the streets and squares of the three focal points around which the next 36 hours in the city will rotate: Piazza Verga, seat of the court, a corner of which has been granted to pro-Salvini demonstrators, Piazza Trento where the protesters will be , and the whole area of the port where the three-day League takes place and where the leader of the League will go to a meeting immediately after the conclusion of the hearing in front of the judge.
A hearing (behind closed doors) which will be only the first and of course interlocutory, dedicated to the establishment of the civil parties (including some of the migrants detained on board the Gregoretti), but for which the media circus has already started: more than 200 requests for accreditation from journalists and crews also from abroad.
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