Italy’s far-right league party leader Matteo Salvini speaks to the press after consultations between President Sergio Mattarella and political parties to try to find a basis for a new government in Rome, Italy, January 28, 2021. REUTERS / Yara Nardi / File Photo
Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s right-wing league party, must be tried on charges of kidnapping his decision to prevent more than 100 migrants from landing in the country in 2019, a judge ordered on Saturday.
Salvini, who was interior minister at the time, left migrants stranded at sea until prosecutors ordered the ship to be confiscated and people on board evacuated.
The trial will begin in the Sicilian capital Palermo on September 15.
Salvini, who has built much of his political fortune in an anti-immigration campaign, could face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty at the end of a torturous, three-stage trial.
A final conviction could ban him from government office.
“I go to trial with my head held high, both on your behalf and mine. First of all, Italy, always,” Salvini wrote on Twitter immediately after the ruling. “The defense of our country is the sacred duty of the citizen … for this I am judged.”
During his 14 months as interior minister, Salvini stopped several boats from docking in Italy to stop the flow of migrants and regularly accused the charities that operated on them of effectively encouraging human smuggling.
Proactiva Open Arms, the Spanish NGO that operated the migrant rescue ship in the center of the case, welcomed the judge’s decision.
“Violation of a fundamental right such as the protection of human beings at sea for the sake of political propaganda is shameful,” said its founder Oscar Camps, adding that the trial would be “an opportunity to judge a period in European history.”
Salvini withdrew the League from the coalition government in the summer of 2019 in a failed attempt to win elections, when his party was leading the vote.
The league, which is now part of Mario Draghi’s two-month-old national unity government, has lost more than 10 voter support points, but remains Italy’s most popular party by about 23 percent, according to most opinion polls. .
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