PALERMO (ITALPRESS) – “Open Arms has had countless, countless, countless chances to land migrants but has had countless, countless, countless refusals. It chose to ‘loiter’ instead of going to its flag state.” This was said by Giulia Bongiorno, Matteo Salvini’s defense lawyer, during closing arguments in the Open Arms trial in which the League leader is a defendant in Palermo. “It is contested to Minister Salvini the crime of kidnapping peoplefor having kept migrants on board, from August 14 to 19, 2019;at the same time, it is considered legitimate and normal that Open Arms,Spanish-flagged vessel, kept the sameimigrants from day 1 to day 14 August, when it was evident to all that he could have landed the migrants in Malta within two days,” Bongiorno pointed out, stressing that “sicontestable to Minister Salvini not to assign the Pos, whenin fact it was assigned the Pos at 3.23, two hours after entering territorial waters. Of refusals we have recorded many, but not of Minister Salvini. “Reviewing what happened in those days, the lawyer pointed out that “schedules play an important role in this matter. Sea rescue is not a do-it-yourself operation: there are phases that must be respected. The slides show us that the barge had nothing broken at the engine level: was there a gash? Even the prosecution’s consultant,” he added, “said it was a patch of a different color. There was no water, there was nothing: intact boat, there was no distress.” In essence, “if we pay attention to times and emails, it is clear that there is not a casual encounter, there is not a distress, but there is an appointment. “Between August 9 and 10, 2019 Open Arms says there is a boat in distress,” but stressed the lawyer, “the boat was perfect.” But “suddenly they talk about difalla, about so many punctures, that that boat was a sieve:Malta obviously recognizes the presence of a danger, they tellOpen Arms that they can proceed and then they would have landed the39 migrants caught in this situation. Open Arms says nothing:Eco3 however says there is no water in this boat. Malta, however,” Bongiorno hacontinued, “is not notified, the rescue is concluded, and then the Maltese patrol boat heads to OpenArms. “At this point the logbook reports: 3:26 a.m., there is an email. It is reported that they are going north, that they have to move;Open is not waiting for the Maltese patrol boat, which is desperately looking forOpen while Open continues to move away. It seems to be a kind of pursuit: Malta follows the position, Open does not give it and then saysexplicitly that it does not intend to hand over the 39 migrants.” According to Bongiorno, “we have witnesses who tell us what the migrants wanted: for Liguori, the migrants declared that they wanted to go to Malta. And the commander? The answer was,they said that to try to calm the situation, the procedures were faster in Italy.” “So,” he concluded, “they have 39 migrants, but they don’t give them to Malta, and the argument of the speed of Italian procedures, a boast for the Italian state, is being used to keep them from disembarking. “Bongiorno does not want to talk about the political process, but it was a time when the political context has some value.”First redistribute and then disembark was the line of that government: Toninelli as head of operations at sea and Di Maio as deputy prime minister had shared the rescue operations of the Diciotti ship in 2018 and they shared, in a very different political situation, the operations related to Open Arms a year later,” she recalled. That of redistribution before disembarkation was a line shared not only by the Conte 1 government, but also by Conte 2, of which Salvini was not part. “And the then premier “was himself dealing with the migrants in those hours, he was making the phone calls to redistribute before disembarkation. Negotiations had begun” with the PD to build a new government, “it was a particular political context: ‘I’m not taking a different attitude, I never said they have to get off: minors yes, for the others redistribution,’ Conte wanted to say. It’s August 15, so far there is total adherence to Salvini’s actions. It is clear that the issue is not Open Arms and the issue is not minors.”
– Photo Agency Photogram –
(ITALPRESS).
