Italian right-wing leader Salvini faces a potential 6-year prison sentence in migration trial

ROME (AP) — Italian prosecutors on Saturday requested a six-year prison sentence for right-wing League leader Matteo Salvin i for his decision to prevent more than 100 migrants from landing in Italy when he was interior minister in 2019. If convicted Salvini could be barred from holding government office.

The prosecutors in the city of Palermo have accused Salvini — who’s currently deputy premier and transport minister in the right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni — of alleged kidnapping for leaving a migrant rescue ship operated by charity Open Arms stranded at sea for 19 days.

During the 2019 standoff, some of the migrants threw themselves overboard in desperation as the captain pleaded for a safe, close port. The remaining 89 people onboard were eventually allowed to disembark in Lampedusa by a court order.

“I would do it all again: defending borders from illegal immigrants is not a crime,” Salvini said on his social media on Saturday.

His lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, will make her defense statement in Palermo on Oct. 18, and a first sentence could come by the end of the month. A conviction – which in Italy is definitive only at the end of a three-stage judicial process -- could bar Salvini from holding government office.

Meloni and several ministers of her government expressed solidarity with the League leader, defending his decisions. Since she stepped into power in 2022, Meloni has pledged a crackdown on migration, aiming to deter would-be refugees from paying smugglers to make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing.

“It is incredible that a minister of the Italian Republic risks six years in prison for doing his job defending the nation’s borders, as required by the mandate received from its citizens,” the Italian premier wrote on X.

Salvini maintained a hard line on migration in his tenure as interior minister in the first government of Premier Giuseppe Conte, from 2018-2019.

He imposed a “closed ports” policy under which Italy refused entry to charity ships that rescued migrants in distress across the Mediterranean and repeatedly accused humanitarian organizations of effectively encouraging people smuggling.