Italian Deputy Prime Minister Salvini faces judgment in the trial of the kidnapping of a migrant rescue boat

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, arrived in court ahead of the verdict in his trial on charges of kidnapping and dereliction of duty for refusing to let a migrant rescue boat dock in an Italian port in 2019.

Prosecutors in Sicily asked the judge to sentence him to six years in prison.

Salvini, leader of the right-wing Lega party and a government ally of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has said he will file an appeal if convicted.

He has denied the allegations, repeatedly accusing the judges of being “political” and maintaining his only sin is wanting to “protect Italy”.

Arriving in court on Friday, he said it was a beautiful day “because I am proud to have defended my country.”

One of the prosecutors, Geri Ferrara, told the court in September that human rights must come before “the protection of national sovereignty.”

“A person stranded at sea must be rescued and whether they are classified as migrants, crew or passengers is irrelevant,” she said.

A ship belonging to the NGO Open Arms was carrying 147 migrants picked up off the Libyan coast when it was prevented from docking at the Italian island of Lampedusa on orders from Salvini, the interior minister at the time. there.

Open Arms remained at sea for nearly three weeks and the health situation of the migrants on board worsened.

Ultimately, the prosecutor in the Sicilian city of Agrigento, Luigi Patronaggio, ordered the ship’s precautionary seizure after inspecting it and noting the “difficult situation on board”.

Salvini asserted that Giuseppe Conte’s then-government fully supported him in his mission to “close the ports” of Italy to NGO rescue ships.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni stood by her deputy prime minister, saying he had her and her government’s “solidarity”.

She posted on X earlier this year: “Turning the duty to protect Italy’s borders from illegal immigration into a crime is a very serious precedent.”

She never indicated that she would expect his resignation in the event of a guilty verdict, and Salvini, for his part, has said he will not resign.

In recent months, he has frequently mentioned the trial and upcoming verdict in social media posts as well as in public speeches and interviews.

“I want to believe that Italy is a normal country and in a normal country the border guard would not be convicted,” he told Italian media earlier this week. If true, he said, “it would be terrible news for the country and a cause for celebration for people smugglers and enemies of Italy”.

He also alleged that the Italian judiciary had been “politicized” and that some judges were “clearly pursuing left-wing politics”.

Elly Schlein, leader of the center-left opposition Democratic Party, accused Salvini of “spreading propaganda and causing serious institutional conflicts”.

The three female prosecutors in the case have been under police protection since September after being harassed online and receiving threats.

Members of Salvini’s Lega party have rallied around him and are preparing to demonstrate in his support.

On Wednesday, Lega MEPs appeared at the European Parliament session in Strasbourg wearing a T-shirt that read “Defending Italy” – a slogan Salvini has used in the past.

Lega deputy secretary Andrea Crippa said: “The conviction would be an extremely serious matter. It would be like condemning the entire Italian people, the Italian parliament and the elected government.”

The president of Lombardy’s Lega party, Attilio Fontana, said a guilty verdict would be “so wrong, even from a judicial point of view, that I don’t even want to think about it”.

Others outside Italy have also joined the debate.

“That crazy prosecutor should have been the one to go to jail for 6 years,” Elon Musk wrote on Twitter, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a close ally of Salvini, called the trial “shameful.” .

If convicted, Salvini said he would appeal the verdict “up to the Supreme Court of Cassation” – Italy’s highest court.

That process could take several months and Salvini’s position in the government and parliament will not be affected.