Salvini facing kidnapping charge
A Sicilian prosecutor has in effect charged Matteo Salvini, the Italian interior minister, with kidnap, illegal arrest and abuse of office after more than 100 migrants were confined to a coastguard rescue ship for ten days.
Luigi Patronaggio, the public prosecutor in Agrigento, announced that he had placed Salvini under investigation: the equivalent in Italy of being charged.
Patronaggio said at the weekend that he had passed on evidence against Salvini, leader of the far-right League party, and his chief of staff at the interior ministry to a ministerial tribunal for review for possible prosecution. The prosecutor has questioned officials from the interior ministry over why Italy failed to indicate a port of safety for the migrants, as required by international law; why the migrants had not been allowed to proceed with asylum requests; and why there was no written documentation on the handling of the contentious case.
There are concerns – shared by the prosecutor and commentators – about Salvini’s leadership style.
The interior minister, who is also one of two deputy prime ministers, has been accused of reinventing the rules and procedures for senior politicians.
A trial of Salvini in a special ministerial court would have to be approved by the Senate, an outcome that remains unlikely as long as the government has a solid parliamentary majority.
Salvini announced the investigation himself at a political rally in northern Italy on Saturday night, challenging magistrates to arrest him and goading them, saying that they could not ‘‘arrest the desire for change of 60 million Italians’’.
The investigation appears to have rattled him, however.
At the same time as declaring the inquiry, he said that he had given permission for the remaining
137 people on board the coastguard ship Diciotti to disembark in Catania. Last week he had told them to ‘‘get stuffed’’.
They had been held on board in port while the government tried to persuade EU allies to give them a home.
They were part of an original group of 190 migrants who were rescued from an overcrowded rubber dinghy in Maltese waters on August
16. Those on board who were sick and the women and children were allowed to disembark in tranches in Lampedusa – the island comes under the jurisdiction of Agrigento – leaving 137 people on board to be held for five days at Catania.