Home » Matteo Salvini indicted for the Open Arms case – Annalisa Camilli

Matteo Salvini indicted for the Open Arms case – Annalisa Camilli

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The judge for the preliminary hearing (gup) of Palermo, Lorenzo Jannelli, has decided to indict the former interior minister Matteo Salvini, accused of multiple kidnapping in the case of the Spanish humanitarian vessel Open Arms of the NGO Proactiva Open Arms. The first hearing of the trial will be held on September 15, in front of the Palermo Assize Court. The story dates back to August 2019, when the former interior minister prevented the ship, which had rescued 147 people off the coast of Libya, from docking in the port of Lampedusa for 19 days based on the so-called bis security decree, approved some week before.

The administrative court of Lazio (Tar) also expressed itself on the case on 14 August 2019, responding to an appeal lodged by the Spanish organization. The TAR suspended the decree that prevented the ship from entering Italian territorial waters, recognizing “an excess of power for misrepresentation of the facts and violation of the international law of the sea in the matter of rescue”. The TAR also claimed that the rescue had taken place in conditions “of exceptional gravity and urgency”.

Despite the decision of the Lazio court, the interior minister signed a new decree to prevent the boat from entering the port of Lampedusa, but the ministers of defense and transport (Trenta and Toninelli) at that point refused to sign the decree. The ship, however, docked in Lampedusa only on August 20, after several appeals presented by the NGO to the Agrigento prosecutor’s office and to the juvenile court. The intervention of the Agrigento prosecutor Luigi Patronaggio was decisive, who after getting on board, decided to order the disembarkation and preventive seizure of the ship, assuming the crime of omitting official acts. In the preventive seizure decree, the prosecutor of Agrigento Luigi Patronaggio had recalled which are the international regulations signed by Italy that regulate rescue at sea. “The obligation to save lives at sea is a duty of states and prevails over bilateral regulations and agreements, aimed at combating irregular immigration,” he wrote.

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In the last days of the stalemate the situation aboard the ship had degenerated: many shipwrecked had begun to jump into the sea to reach the mainland by swimming, exasperated by the long wait. It was, therefore, the Agrigento prosecutor’s office that opened the judicial action against the interior minister Salvini in August 2019, and then passed the jurisdiction to the court of Palermo, because the crime concerned a minister and it was necessary to ask for the authorization to proceed to the Senate. The municipality of Barcelona, ​​the ship’s captain Marc Reig and other humanitarian organizations filed a civil action during the preliminary hearings of the proceedings.

The reactions to the sentence
Salvini’s lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, had asked in her defense not to proceed, citing the “unquestionability” of the political decisions adopted by the Conte government. “Do not let the sentences take the place of the polls”, said Bongiorno, concluding his speech, with the same defensive strategy used for the Gregoretti file, in progress at the court of Catania for a similar case involving the Italian coast guard and the same former minister. Matteo Salvini, who was present at the Palermo hearing on April 17, commented on the sentence on social networks saying: “The defense of the homeland is a sacred duty of the citizen. Am I going to trial for this, for defending my country? I go there with my head held high ”.

Arturo Salerni, lawyer of Proactiva Open Arms, commented on the decision of the gup saying: “The prosecutor of Palermo and the court of ministers of Palermo were very clear, they argued very well the existence of the crime of multiple kidnapping, the omission of the official act and the responsibilities of the former interior minister. The process had to be done and will be done ”. For Salerni, the decision of the TAR was decisive in the case, which suspended the decree that prohibited the ship from entering Italian waters: “The detention on board of people after that decision of the TAR is completely illegitimate”.

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For the founder of the NGO Open Arms, Oscar Camps, the decision of the Palermo gup “is a historical fact”. “We don’t know what the final sentence will be,” Camps said. “For sure it will be a complex process, but we would like it to take place in respect of the 147 people who were rescued and then kidnapped for days. We hope that justice is done for those people, for their families who have suffered from afar, for the volunteers, for all the humanitarian organizations that have suffered many attacks over the years. We want respect for human rights and the protection of people’s life and dignity to win ”, he concluded. During a press conference, the captain of the Spanish ship, Marc Reig, said: “It was very hard to be at the helm of that ship in those days. But we have always had faith in justice ”.

According to the lawyer Salerni, the trial that will begin in September will be long and complex and could last up to a year. The crime of kidnapping was charged to Salvini in two other cases involving two coast guard ships, the Diciotti and the Gregoretti. In the Diciotti case, the Senate has not given the authorization to proceed against the former minister, while in the case of Gregoretti in May the gup of Catania, Nunzio Sarpietro, must express himself on the indictment.

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