Italy’s Senate has voted to allow prosecutors to put far-right leader Matteo Salvini on trial over charges of holding migrants at sea.<\/p>\n
Mr Salvini, who previously served as Italy’s interior minister, is accused of illegally keeping people on a boat off Sicily for days in August 2019.<\/p>\n
Some 116 migrants remained aboard the Gregoretti for close to a week.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, a majority of senators voted for the trial of the anti-immigration League leader to go ahead.<\/p>\n
Mr Salvini has repeatedly said he wants to go to court. He told the chamber he wanted “to tell the world” that his migration policies “saved tens of thousands of lives.”<\/p>\n
“I am absolutely calm and proud of what I have done. And I’ll do it again as soon as I get back into government,” he said later.<\/p>\n
Senators from his League party left the chamber rather than take part in Wednesday’s vote.<\/p>\n
Under Italian law, ministers have parliamentary immunity for actions taken while they were in office. But a committee voted last month to strip Mr Salvini of his immunity – leaving the final decision in the hands of the Senate on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The upper house Senate voted 152-76 in favour of lifting the immunity.<\/p>\n
After the tally was announced, Mr Salvini compared himself to US President Donald Trump, who was impeached in December and accused opponents of undermining his electoral success through the courts.<\/p>\n
“I, like Trump? He has a few more billions and a few more years, but it’s a bad little habit of the left, going around in the world, to try to win by judicial means,” he wrote on Twitter.<\/p>\n
If successfully prosecuted at trial, Mr Salvini could face up to 15 years in jail.<\/p>\n
For years, some in Italy have complained that the country has taken in a large number of migrants fleeing across the Mediterranean, and has called for other EU nations to take their share.<\/p>\n
Mr Salvini in particular took a hard stance on migrant boats while he was in office, implementing a closed ports policy.<\/p>\n
On 25 July 2019, Italian coastguard ship the Gregoretti picked up about 140 migrants trying to travel to Italy from Libya.<\/p>\n
While the Gregoretti allowed several people off the ship for medical attention, some 116 people remained on board for days while Mr Salvini demanded other EU countries take them in.<\/p>\n
The decision drew an immediate backlash. Prosecutors opened an investigation into conditions aboard after reports that migrants only had one toilet between them.<\/p>\n
After the Catholic Church and a number of states agreed to care for those on board, in a deal which then EU commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos helped to broker, Mr Salvini eventually consented to let them dock on 31 July.<\/p>\n
The League leader insists the decision to keep the migrants offshore had the support of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the rest of the government.<\/p>\n
But prosecutors believe he acted alone, ignoring repeated requests from Mr Conte to release them.<\/p>\n
Italy’s Populist Five Star Movement – at the time in coalition with the League – had backed Mr Salvini in previous cases, such as when\u00a0140 migrants on board the Diciotti vessel were not allowed to embark in Sicily for six days<\/a>\u00a0in the summer of 2018.<\/p>\n But the party says that in the case of the Gregoretti he acted alone.<\/p>\n Later in February Mr Salvini also faces losing his immunity over another migrant case. He is accused of keeping\u00a0the Open Arms migrant vessel offshore for days<\/a>\u00a0in August last year.<\/p>\n At the time,\u00a0Prime Minister Conte called Mr Salvini “obsessed” with keeping migrants out<\/a>\u00a0of Italy.<\/p>\n By Mark Lowen, BBC News, Rome<\/strong><\/p>\n The response of most politicians when the hand of the judiciary comes knocking is to deny, evade, or flee. The response of Matteo Salvini: bring it on.<\/p>\n For a man who has built his political success on a hard anti-migrant line, the decision to try him for blocking migrants from Italy feeds the image he presents of himself as defender of the Italian nation. Italy’s populist-in-chief will revel in a move that depicts the man of the people as being targeted by the establishment.<\/p>\n And although eventual conviction could potentially end Matteo Salvini’s political career, he won’t be too worried for now. The wheels of justice move slowly in Italy: even if he were convicted, he’d have the right to two appeals, which could take years.<\/p>\n And he’ll take solace from his predecessor as Italy’s lead populist, Silvio Berlusconi, who was convicted for fraud, his sentence then commuted – and returned as an Italian MEP. A political comeback, Italian-style.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No fear for populist-in-chief Salvini<\/h2>\n