Let migrants kids off Diciotti say prosecutors

(ANSA) - Catania, August 22 - Catania minors' prosecutors on Wednesday wrote to the interior and transport ministers, the head of the civil liberties and immigration department and the local prefect urging them to let unaccompanied minors off the Diciotti coast guard ship docked in the Sicilian city.
    The ship currently holds 177 migrants including 29 unaccompanied minors.
    Agrigento prosecutor Luigi Patronaggio on Wednesday boarded the Dicotti coast guard ship in a probe into the allegedly unlawful detention of the 177 migrants who have been aboard the ship for five days and prevented from landing for two days.
    The probe may lead to charges of abduction, legal sources said.
    The probe is as yet against person or persons unknown.
    If it were to target Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has ordered the migrants kept on board until the EU agrees to redistribute them, the case will be put to a special ministers' tribunal, the sources said.
    Libya will refuse "all initiatives aimed at repatriating migrants to its territory", Foreign Minister Muhammad Sayala said Wednesday.
    Sayala, a member of the national unity government, told the LANA news agency that "Libya will in no way accept what is being reported by some news outlets regarding the repatriation of illegal migrants towards the North African countries they have come from".
    Interior Minister Salvini has said Italy will send back the 177 migrants to Libya unless the EU agrees to redistribute them.
    They are currently at Catania but have been prevented from landing pending the EU's response.