Salvini indignant on first day of Open Arms trial

(23 Oct 2021) Italy's former interior minister, Matteo Salvini, went on trial Saturday charged with kidnapping for refusing in 2019 to allow a Spanish migrant rescue ship to dock in Sicily, keeping the people onboard at sea for days.

It is the first trial against Salvini for his actions preventing migrant landings while he served as a hard-line interior minister from 2018-2019 in an uneasy coalition between the populist 5-Star Movement and Salvini's right-wing League.  

Speaking outside the Palermo courthouse with his lawyer Giulia Bongiorno,  Salvini said he "did his job" and called the trial a surreal undergoing".

He accused the trial of not being "serious", telling journalists: "how serious can be a trial where Richard Gere coming from Hollywood to witness on my career".

Actor Richard Gere supported the Open Arms rescue ship, with footage from 2019 showing him handing out food during a visit to a ship in the Mediterranean sea.

Salvini was present for the opening day of the trial in Palermo, Sicily, which was expected to deal with mostly procedural requests.

He has insisted he was fulfilling his duty by refusing entry to the Open Arms rescue ship, and the 147 people it had saved in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya.

"A Spanish ship refusing to go to Spain is making an abuse, it looks very simple to me." Salvini said, adding: "An Italian ship pretending to enter a Spanish port would be obviously be creating problems in Spain, I'm (was) a Minister in Italy, I hope to go back to be a Minister in Italy, therefore Spanish ships go to Spain."

Salvini took a hardline on migrant arrivals during his tenure as interior minister in 2018-2019, blocking arrivals and pushing for Europe to take some of the burden off Italy.

Palamero prosecutors have accused Salvini of dereliction of duty and kidnapping for refusing to allow the migrant ship into port for days in August 2019.

During the nearly three-week standoff, some migrants threw themselves overboard in desperation and the captain pleaded for a safe, nearby port.

Some migrants were taken to land for humanitarian or health reasons, while the remaining 83 were eventually allowed to disembark in Lampedusa.

A court in Catania, Sicily earlier this year decided not to try Salvini in a similar case, for keeping 116 migrants on board an Italian coast guard ship at sea for five days, also in 2019.



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