Open Arms, Salvini on trial in Palermo. The Public Prosecutor’s Office renounces hearing Piantedosi and Massari

Minister Matteo Salvini is in the bunker room of the Ucciardone prison in Palermo, accompanied by his lawyer, the lawyer Giulia Bongiorno, to participate in the new hearing of the Open Arms trial, which sees him accused of kidnapping and refusal of official documents . The Palermo prosecutor’s office declined to hear the Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, former head of cabinet of the then minister Salvini, but also the prefect Paolo Formicola and the ambassador Maurizio Massari. This was announced in the courtroom by the President of the Court Angelo Pellino.

“The submarine simply picked up the Spanish-language communication and we sent it to our operations center without any analysis. The interlocutors had to be in the horizon line to be picked up», said Stefano Oliva corvette captain of the Navy. «Open Arms approached and put up the ladder and got everyone on board – he explained – from the boat to the dinghy and then from the dinghies to the Open Arms. And before making this rescue, they delivered life jackets. One of the two dinghies was recovered, “OA108″ was written, and left adrift. The second dinghy was also recovered and the unit resumed sailing with an easterly direction. Then we continued our journey. There was also a Libyan patrol boat that we then lost sight of”.

“I expect only one thing from this trial: justice,” said the founder of the Spanish NGO Open Arms, Oscar Camps, as soon as he arrived in the Ucciardone bunker room. «I listen to very technical speeches, completely out of place. We are talking about people, human beings. There has been a lot of talk about when a boat is in distress or when it isn’t, when in reality we are talking about dramatic and very harsh situations on board. Women raped repeatedly, girls raped repeatedly, kids traveling alone, adults tortured, raped, detained for years without having committed any crime – he says -. And he omits to talk about all this and prefers to discuss whether or not these boats needed to be rescued. We are talking about 7-metre boats, with pregnant women, babies of a few months, adrift for days, without water or food, forced to perform their needs on the boat, dehydrated, undernourished, who need immediate assistance, not just to be rescued, but to be treated immediately. And we do not consider all this, we deny it, because the truth is that there are lives that matter more and lives that matter less and that can be abandoned at sea”.