Salvini not prosecuted for stopping ship carrying migrants

Italian former minister Matteo Salvini will not be prosecuted for stopping a ship carrying 131 migrants in the summer of 2019. The leader of the right-wing populist party Lega was charged with deprivation of liberty, but according to the court in Catania Salvini cannot stand for this. facts are being prosecuted.

Prior to the session in the bunker of the Bicocca prison in Sicily, Salvini said he already believed he would be acquitted: “I expect justice with a capital G.”

The public prosecutor had also requested in advance that the trial be stopped, because international law was allegedly not violated. The judge’s decision therefore comes as no surprise.

Another case is still ongoing

That does not mean that Salvini is free from prosecution. He has another case pending for blocking another migrant ship in the summer of 2019, leaving 149 people trapped at sea for a week.

In that case, according to the Public Prosecution Service, there are sufficient legal grounds to prosecute the Legal Leader. According to prosecutors, the minister acted on his own, independent of parliament. In september he has to defend himself before the court in Palermo. He risks jail time and could lose his job as a politician.

Senator

Salvini, 48, is currently in the Italian Senate. There, last summer, the way was paved for Salvini’s prosecution by the immunity from prosecution that he enjoys as a politician to lift.

His Lega has been in office since the 2018 parliamentary election the second party of the country, but in the polls they go for quite some time in the lead. After several government crises, Salvini’s party is part of one government of national unity led by former top banker Mario Draghi.

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