Italy’s Salvini prepares for his day in court over migrant detention charges ‘with his head held high’

Matteo Salvini, the head of the League and leader of the Italian opposition

Credit: AFP

A defiant Matteo Salvini faces a preliminary court hearing on Saturday in which he is accused of unlawfully detaining migrants at sea after refusing to let them disembark from an Italian coastguard vessel.

If convicted of the charge, the head of the hard-Right League party, who is now the leader of Italy’s opposition, could face up to 15 years in prison.

But before any sentence is reached, Mr Salvini is expected to make political capital out of the trial, casting himself as a martyr and guardian of Italy’s borders.

He will attend a preliminary hearing in the city of Catania in Sicily, with the presiding judge deciding whether there is enough evidence to send him to trial.

Mr Salvini said he would enter the courtroom “with my head held high.”

“We did what the Italian people asked us to do – to stop treating Sicily like the refugee camp of Europe,” he said.

Prosecutors and judges should use their time more profitably. “I would be happier if they dedicated themselves to catching Mafiosi and criminals,” he said.

The migrants were not allowed to disembark from the Gregoretti coast guard vessel

Credit: AFP

“It is clear that I did not commit any crime. But it will be the Italian people at the next election to say whether I did the right thing or not.”

Mr Salvini was interior minister and deputy prime minister when he banned the 116 African asylum seekers, who had been rescued at sea, from disembarking from the Gregoretti coastguard vessel for five days last July.

They lived on the vessel in roasting temperatures, amid an outbreak of scabies, with critics of the government denouncing the conditions as squalid and inhumane.

Mr Salvini won considerable support among some voters for declaring that Italian ports were closed to migrants and refugees crossing the Mediterranean from the coast of Libya.

In a series of stand-offs, rescued migrants were left at sea while the Italian government demanded assurances from other EU countries that they would accept them for resettlement.

He fell from power last summer when the coalition he had forged with the Five Star Movement collapsed, in part because of his brinkmanship, to be replaced by the current government, an alliance between Five Star and the centre-Left Democratic Party.

Rival rallies, in support of Mr Salvini and against him, have been held in Catania as the hearing nears.

Mr Salvini’s supporters have adopted the slogan “Put me on trial too”, while his allies accused the judiciary of being “a fiefdom of the Left”.