Open arms, on Saturday the Prosecutor's request: Salvini risks up to 15 years in prison. League ready to mobilise

It is not only a crucial judicial passage that is expected on Saturday 14 September in the trial being held in Palermo against Matteo Salvini for the Open Arms affair: in August 2019, the then interior minister of the yellow-green government denied disembarkation in Lampedusa to the Spanish NGO's ship with 147 refugees rescued at sea, causing a twenty-day standoff. The situation was unblocked by the judiciary, which ordered the emergency disembarkation after the then prosecutor of Agrigento Luigi Patronaggio had personally ascertained the poor health conditions of the migrants, exhausted by the heat and the sea crossing.

On Saturday in the Ucciardone bunker room, the Palermo prosecutors' indictment is expected to conclude with the prosecutor's request to charge the leader of the League (defended by lawyer Giulia Bongiorno, a senator of the League) with the crime of kidnapping and refusal to perform official acts. For those who 'deprive someone of personal freedom', the Criminal Code provides for a penalty of up to fifteen years if the crime is committed against a minor or if the perpetrator is 'a public official, with abuse of the powers inherent in his functions'.

The deputy premier will be in the courtroom. "While other European countries such as Germany think about closing their borders," Salvini said, "this weekend the request of the prosecutors for the Open Arms trial - wanted by the left - will be announced, in which I am accused of stopping the landings as interior minister and for which I risk a sentence of up to fifteen years in prison, a case that has no precedent in the West. Proud to have defended the honour, dignity and security of my country'.

The party, it is announced from Via Bellerio, is ready to mobilise.

The file on the Open arms case was forwarded to the Palermo Public Prosecutor's Office, the prosecuting office of the capital where the Tribunal of Ministers is based, which was competent because criminal responsibilities of the then holder of the Viminale were hypothesised. In November 2019, the Ministers' Court received a request from the prosecutors to proceed with preliminary investigations against the League leader. In February 2020, the collegium decided to ask the Senate for authorisation to proceed. In the measure, with which the court substantially accepted the reconstruction of the prosecutors, the judges affirmed the principle of the obligation to provide rescue at sea and defined as 'administrative' and not political the act of prohibiting the landing of migrants ordered by Salvini.