GENOA (ITALPRESS) – “I will be in court in Palermo next Friday, I count on being acquitted because I believe I did my duty.” Thus the deputy prime minister and minister, Matteo Salvini, about the Open Arms trial, on the sidelines of an event in Genoa. “I should have more jail time than a pedophile: it is extremely curious. If I were convicted,” he added, “it would be a disaster not for me, who have broad shoulders, but for Italy, because it would be a signal to the smugglers from halfway around the world: go to Italy because there instead of the traffickers they punish the ministers who blocked the landings. I do not believe I have committed any crime,” he then responded to a question about why he does not plea bargain unlike former Ligurian president Giovanni Toti. “I do not comment on the defense strategies of others, each lawyer does his job well. I have a lawyer whom I overdo, but I have no intention of acknowledging any mistake because countering illegal immigration I still believe it was my duty, not my right.”
– Photo: Photogram Agency -(ITALPRESS).
