5-Star Movement (M5S) members on
Monday started online consultations to decide whether M5S
lawmakers on a Senate panel should vote to lift League leader
and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's parliamentary immunity to
face kidnapping charges over migrants held on board the Diciotti
coast guard ship in a standoff with the EU last August.
Magistrates in the Sicilian city of Catania have requested
authorization from parliament to proceed against Salvini, who is
also deputy premier.
Salvini has said the case should not be allowed to proceed as
he was doing his job as minister.
The M5S is the League's senior partner in Premier Giuseppe
Conte's coalition government.
The movement appears split on whether to vote on the immunity
panel for or against allowing the kidnapping charges against
their ally Salvini to proceed.
"I can guarantee that the government will not collapse,"
Salvini said.
"I don't fear the court of the people".
Salvini also said that "we're all in the same boat" referring
to Conte, fellow Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, the M5S leader,
and Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli, also of the M5S, who
wrote in statements to the panel that the interior minister was
implementing the policy of the whole government.
Sources said the result of the vote would be known at about
nine thirty on Monday evening.
Salvini said he is "not asking for favours or help from
anyone" in the vote.
"If, to defend the borders of my country, the safety of
Italians, to defend the national interest, it brings me and will
bring me other charges and other investigations, I'm very ready
to face them," Salvini said.
Salvini has also threatened to take legal action if reports
of a possible deal within the government over the Turin-Lyon TAV
high-speed rail line and the Diciotti cases continue.
"I'll sue the next person who talks about that," League
leader Salvini said during a visit to the central city of Terni
last week.
Salvini says the project should go ahead but the M5S are
opposed to it.
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