Premier Giorgia Meloni on Monday expressed shock at a decision by a Catania court to release three Tunisian migrants from detention on the grounds that measures in a recent government decree are allegedly illegitimate.
Under the decree, migrants can be held in pre-expulsion CPR centres for up to 18 months but can post a 'bail' of 5,000 euros in order to avert being detained, a measure that has spurred widespread criticism.
"I was astonished by the Catania judge's ruling, which, on incredible grounds... freed an illegal immigrant who had already received a deportation order, unilaterally declaring Tunisia an unsafe country (which is not the judiciary's job) and going against the measures of a democratically elected government," Meloni said in a social-media post.
"It is not the first time this has happened but we will continue to defend the borders (of Italy)". She said the government was faced with a "difficult job" to tackle illegal immigration but said its efforts would "bring concrete results, with patience and determination.
"Of course, everything becomes much more difficult if, in the meantime, other States are working in the diametrically opposite direction, and if part of Italy is doing everything it can to favour illegal immigration," she continued.
Meloni's government is currently engaged in a row with Berlin over th German government's decision to fund NGOs operating migrant-rescue operations in the Mediterranean.
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