The Senate's immunity panel on
Tuesday voted against granting a request from criminal
prosecutors to proceed with charges against Deputy Premier and
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini over the Diciotti case.
Magistrates in the Sicilian city of Catania requested
authorization from parliament to proceed against the leader of
the anti-migrant League for alleged kidnapping over migrants
held on board the Diciotti coast guard ship in a standoff with
the EU last August.
Salvini said the case should not be allowed to proceed as he
was doing his job as minister.
On Monday members of the 5-Star Movement (M5S), the League's
coalition partners, voted 59% to 41% for the group's lawmakers
to vote against lifting Salvini's parliamentary immunity.
It went the same way on the Senate panel on Tuesday, with 16
backing the line proposed by panel chair Maurizio Gasparri of
Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right opposition Forza Italia (FI)
party, while six were against.
Some M5S supporters expressed unease about backing immunity
for Salvini, saying the movement has traditionally been against
MPs getting different treatment in such cases.
Senators from the centre-left opposition Democratic Party
(PD) shouted "shame, honesty" at the M5S Senators after the
vote, referring to the movement's rallying cry when it emerged
onto the political scene.
M5S Senator Mario Michele Giarrusso replied "my father and
mother are at home regularly: others are under house arrest, and
then they speak of honesty", referring to the parents of former
PD leader and ex-premier Matteo Renzi, placed under house arrest
Monday night over alleged fraudulent bankruptcy and false
invoices.
He also made a hand-cuffs gesture at the PD Senators.
Salvini said after the vote he would have accepted "any
response" from the panel.
"I would have accepted any response, aware of the fact that
what I'm doing and we're doing we do so foe the benefit of our
country," he said.
"So I was and am ready for any kind of judgement.
"For me, first comes the defence of borders and the security
of my people and so I worked calmly yesterday and I work calmly
today," he said.
Salvini went on: "we're a team (in government). In government
there is a team, there are no individuals, so I say thanks for
the confidence in the team".
The immunity panel's vote is not the final say in the case.
There will now have to be a vote in the floor of the upper
house.
But with the M5S Senators having pledged to follow the lead
of their members' online vote, it appears to be a foregone
conclusion in favour of Salvini.
The movement had appeared dangerously split on whether to
vote for or against allowing the kidnapping charges against
Salvini to proceed.
But Salvini said: "I can guarantee that the government will
not collapse".
"I don't fear the court of the people".
Salvini also said that "we're all in the same boat" referring
to Premier Gisueppe 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.
Di Maio also said the government would go ahead no matter
what the result of the vote.
"The government will go on. I have made a commitment to the
Italian people and I intend to carry it out," he said.
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.
Italy's centre-left and centre-right opposition parties,
meanwhile, have accused the M5S Senators of ducking their
responsibilities by delegating their decision to the party base,
and of betraying their movement's founding principles.
PD Senator Laura Garavini said "they used to shout 'honesty',
now they've become lackeys".
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