Trial in Sicily: Salvini says he was ‘doing a favor’ for Italy by blocking migrants at sea

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Friday that he was “doing a favor” for Italy by blocking the migrant ship of Spanish NGO Open Arms at sea in August 2019 when he was the previous government’s interior minister.

“I believe that I have rendered a useful service to the country. I take full responsibility for what we have done with results never seen before (…) not only in terms of combating human trafficking, but above all in terms of lives saved,” he said during his trial in Palermo (Sicily), who should determine whether he illegally prevented these migrants from disembarking at the port.

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Mattoe Salvini, leader of the anti-immigrant League party and an ally of Georgia’s far-right Prime Minister Meloni, categorically denies the allegations against him as they date back to August 2019. He is accused of using his position as minister to strand 147 migrants at sea, refusing to allow them to disembark from the Open Arms rescue ship as their health rapidly deteriorated.

For “kidnapping” he faces up to 15 years in prison with the aggravating circumstance that there were minors on board the ship. Known for his populist stances, Matteo Salvini, 50, has repeatedly resorted to targeting migrants to bolster his political capital. The number of migrants crossing the border has dropped by 90% as a result of restrictive policies he has imposed in recent years, and migrant deaths have been cut in half, he said.

The Italian fact-checking site Pagella Politica, for its part, clarifies that the number of arrivals began to fall in the summer of 2017 and that while the absolute number of deaths has decreased, it has increased in percentage terms compared to the number of migrants. arrived on Italian shores during this period.

Matteo Salvini, who was part of Giuseppe Conte’s first government (June 2018–August 2019), ordered the closure of Italian ports to NGO ships rescuing migrants. He justified the policy on security grounds, saying it was aimed at combating smugglers. On Friday he confirmed, with supporting emails, that the decision to prevent the Open Arms boat from mooring was taken with the agreement of the entire government, including Giuseppe Conte, with whom relations had been damaged.

Migrants rushed into the sea

The migrants, stuck on board for three weeks, were finally allowed to disembark on Lampedusa, a small Italian island off the coast of Tunisia, by a court decision. During their testimony, members of Open Arms explained that the migrants’ physical and mental health were at risk, including a scabies epidemic. Some of them even threw themselves into the sea in despair, causing outrage among humanitarian groups. “The situation was not in danger,” Salvini defended.

These events occurred at the height of the political crisis, after Matteo Salvini withdrew support for the Conte government in an attempt to provoke new elections, which he had hoped to win. But Giuseppe Conte managed to assemble a new coalition without the League, and in 2020 the Senate voted to lift the former minister’s parliamentary immunity.

The Meloni government has also taken a hard line against migrant rescue NGOs, who are now required to travel to their assigned Italian port, often very far from where the migrants were rescued in the first rescue, preventing them from staying in the area to provide assistance. possible assistance to other migrants in distress.

This policy has not yet produced convincing results: more than 157,000 migrants arrived in Italy in 2023, compared to about 105,000 in 2022.