Deputy Premier, Transport Minister
and former hardline anti-immigration interior minister Matteo
Salvini has updated his April book Controvento (Against the
Tide) with two chapters entitled Trial of an Italian describing
a case for which a Palermo prosecutor has requested six years in
jail for allegedly kidnapping 147 migrants aboard the Spanish
rescue ship Open Arms by refusing them permission to land for
several weeks in 2019 as part of his controversial closed ports
policy on NGO run rescue ships.
"I tell you this incredible story," writes the leader of the
anti-migrant League in a part of the 13 pages in which, a note
explains, "he recounts what happened in the summer of 2019 and
reiterates the many shady dealings in the conduct of the NGOs,"
which he and Premier Giorgia Meloni have accused of being
"migrant ferries".
"The trial," says Salvini, "it is good to remember, began
because of the vote of Parliament. After the government crisis
that had caused the break of the League with the 5 Star Movement
(M5S), it was precisely M5S that had joined the left (including
centrist former centre-left premier Matteo Renzi) to feed me to
the judiciary.
"A minister in the dock, not for stealing, but for respecting
the electoral programme with which we had won the 2018
elections."
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