(see related)
Deputy Premier and Transport Minister
Matteo Salvini's League party on Friday called for the
resignation of Iolanda Apostolico, the Catania judge at the
centre of a political storm for overturning a detention order
against four Tunisian nationals being held at a Sicilian
pre-removal facility amid claims of bias.
On Thursday video footage from 2018 was published showing her at
a demonstration against the closed-port policies of the
government of the day implemented by then-interior minister
Salvini.
"She liked insults against Matteo Salvini posted by a comrade,
and never denied it, and, embarrassingly, she was present at a
far-left demonstration in a crowd insulting the police," the
League said in a statement.
"We now await her immediate resignation out of respect for all
Italian people and the institutions".
Sources in the court of Catania, on the other hand, said
Apostolico would not be moved to another position after her
controversial decision not to upheld a request for four
Tunisians to be held at a pre-removal centre on the grounds that
government legislation was illegitimate.
On Thursday morning Salvini posted the video showing Apostolico
and her partner at a protest organised at Catania port on August
25, 2018 to call for the immediate disembarkation of dozens of
rescued refugees and migrants who had been kept aboard the coast
guard ship Diciotti for over a week under his orders.
Apostolico reportedly later told colleagues she had positioned
herself between police and the demonstrators to try to prevent
contact after earlier clashes.
On Friday Salvini said the case was "a source of serious
embarrassment for the institutions".
Opposition parties, meanwhile, raised questions about why the
video existed in the first place and called on Interior Minister
Matteo Piantedosi to explain.
"The witch hunt unleashed by Salvini against the person of Judge
Apostolico is really incredibly serious" and what happened on
Thursday "deserves answers, which Minister Piantedosi must
give", said centre-left Democratic Party (PD) senators Anna
Rossomando and Walter Verini.
"How did that video come out and from where? Who made it? Are
there perhaps dedicated archives? The episode raises disturbing
questions," they added. The opposition Five Star Movement (M5S)
took a similar line.
"The question we asked ourselves is how did the minister get
hold of the video? Are demonstrators being profiled? Is
profiling being used to gather confidential information? To fuel
hatred and rancour against a magistrate who has taken a decision
that this government does not like?" said M5S deputy Lower House
whip Vittoria Baldino
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