League leader Matteo Salvini
said Friday "we are thinking of a national mobilisation" to
defend him in the alleged kidnapping of migrants aboard the
Gregoretti ship last summer.
"That I should risk a trial for kidnapping for having
defended the borders, security and honour of the country is
unworthy of a civilised country," he said on the stump for
Calabrian regional elections on January 26.
Earlier this month Salvini's lawyers presented a written
deposition to the Senate's immunity panel defending his conduct
when he was interior minister regarding the case of the
Gregoretti Coast Guard ship.
The Catania court of ministers has requested parliament give
it the OK to proceed against Salvini for allegedly abusing his
power by failing to give the ok for more than 100 rescued
migrants to disembark from the ship for several days during a
long standoff in July.
The defensive deposition said that Salvini acted "in the
interests of Italy" and said that the whole government,
including Premier Giuseppe Conte's office, was involved in the
decision.
The case was one of several standoffs Salvini was engaged in
when he was interior minister and deputy premier in Conte's
first government as he sought to apply his policy of closing
Italy's ports to migrants-rescue vessels.
Last year, the League's former alliance partners, the 5-Star
Movement (M5S), voted to reject a request to proceed against
Salvini in a similar case, regarding the Diciotti Coast Guard
ship in August 2018.
But M5S leader and Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio has said
that this case was different as the Diciotti "was a decision
made by the (whole) government while the Gregoretti was
propaganda".
Salvini pulled the plug on Premier Giuseppe Conte's first
government last August, a move which led the M5S to form a new
executive with the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and other
groups.
The Senate's immunity panel will vote on the case on January
20.
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