Migrant ship docks; Italy arrests captain
ROME — A protracted standoff between a ship carrying rescued migrants and the Italian government ended early Saturday when the vessel docked at the southern island of Lampedusa, and the captain was arrested.
The 40 migrants rescued at sea disembarked at dawn, strained and exhausted after 16 days on the vessel, the Sea Watch 3, which flies a Dutch flag and is operated by Sea-Watch, a German nongovernmental organization.
Its captain, Carola Rackete, 31, docked the vessel shortly before 2 a.m., after waiting in vain for two days near the port for permission to come ashore with the migrants.
The Sea Watch, which rescued 53 people off the coast of Libya on June 12, had navigated toward Italy after rejecting an offer to dock in Tripoli, Libya, which humanitarian groups do not deem safe. Thirteen migrants had been allowed to disembark in Italy for medical reasons after the rescue.
The Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, has pushed a hard-line immigration policy, insisting that the country’s ports were closed to rescue ships and demanding that other European countries take the migrants.
Salvini said Saturday that Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal would take the rescued migrants, adding that Italy’s tough stance on immigration had “served to wake up Europe and to wake up these countries,” he said.
In its attempt to dock, the Sea Watch 3 rammed a border-control vessel that was trying to stop it from reaching shore. Rackete was immediately arrested after arriving in Lampedusa.
An Italian judge has 48 hours to decide whether to uphold Rackete’s detention. Salvini said she would be put on a plane to Berlin if she were released.
“The Interior Ministry has an expulsion order ready,” he said, adding the ship had been seized.
Rackete’s Italian lawyer, Leonardo Marino, said by phone his client had been detained on charges of violating an article of Italy’s Code of Navigation, specifically “resisting a war ship,” which carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison on conviction. She is also under investigation for facilitating unauthorized immigration, he said.
Marino said his client was “very tired” because of the “intense pressure” she had been under.
“She saved people at sea, and then asked for a safe port to bring them to, which was denied,” he said.