Meloni speaks of “surreal fury”, planted is said to be “morally attributable”: the Open Arms case again in Cassation against Salvini
Seven months after Matteo Salvini’s acquittal in the Open Arms trial, the judicial affair reopens with a twist. The Prosecutor of the Republic of Palermo filed direct appeal to the Court of Cassation against the sentence with which the Court had acquitted the current vice premier and minister of transport from the accusations of kidnapping and refusal of office acts for the facts of August 2019.
At the center of the procedure, the landing ban imposed on the ship of the Spanish NGO Open Arms with 147 migrants on board, rescued at sea and then got stuck off the coast of Lampedusa. Salvini, at the time Minister of the Interior in the Conte I government, defended the line of penalty by invoking the need to protect national borders. A strategy judged lawful by the court, which on 20 December 2024 acquitted it with full formula: “The fact does not exist”.
Appeal for Saltum: the unusual move of the Prosecutor
The Palermo prosecutor has chosen an unusual, if not unpublished way: the Appeal for Saltumwhich allows you to bypass the appeal and bring the case directly to the attention of the Supreme Court. To sign the initiative, the prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia, the added Marzia Sabella and the substitute Giorgia Righi.
The accusation plant rests on a legal contestation: according to the magistrates, the Court would have mistakenly interpreted the national and international rules on the rescue at sea, ignoring the obligation to assign a safe harbor (the so -called Pose) by the competent state.
The reasons of the Court and the sentence on the Diciotti case
In the reasons filed on 19 June, the college judgmental had argued that the laws on the subject were “precarious, unreliable, unfinished” and characterized by “many gray areas”. An uncertain regulatory framework, which in judgment of the judges excluded the obligation for Italy to accommodate the Open Arms ship.
Public ministries, on the other hand, had supported the existence of a precise legal obligation for the Minister of the Interior. Obligo which, according to the Prosecutor, finds further confirmation in a recent sentence of the United Civil Sections of the Cassation on the Diciotti case.
In that ruling – relating to the blockage of the landing of the Italian military ship with migrants on board, always in summer 2018 and always with Salvini Minister – the supreme judges wrote that “the absence of clear rules” on the identification of the state responsible for the rescue is “dismissed for the foundation”.
The contents of the appeal: “ignored rules, violated personal freedom”
In the appeal, the magistrates of Palermo argue that “the sentence in question proves to be manifestly spoiled for the non -compliance of that series of integrating rules, such as those on personal freedom and the conventions signed by Italy for rescue at sea”. In fact, the accusation states that the facts were ascertained, but that the court was wrong to apply the right.
If the Cassation were to reject the appeal, the process would close definitively. If, on the other hand, the judges of the Palazzaccio should accommodate the application, the case would be postponed on appeal to review the question exclusively on the legal level.
Salvini: “Someone does not resign himself.” Meloni: “Surreal fury”
“I did more than thirty hearings – said Salvini – the court acquitted me because the fact does not exist, recognizing that defending the boundaries is not a crime. Obviously someone does not resign himself. Let’s go on, I don’t worry”.
The Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also intervened on social media: “This fury is surreal, after a bankruptcy trial of three years – to a minister who wanted to respect the law – concluded with full acquittal. I wonder what the Italians of all these energies and resources spent like this, while thousands of honest citizens await justice”.
Planted: “I feel morally attributable too”
Solidarity with Salvini also by the Minister of the Interior Matteo planted, at the time head of Cabinet at the Interior Ministry. “I was very impressed by this news, also humanly and professionally. I claim the action that was made to contrast illegal immigration, which is not very different from the mafias. If there was a moral responsibility, I consider myself attributable too,” he said.
The political context and the precedent of the Diciotti case
The Open Arms affair was also possible thanks to the authorization to proceed granted by Parliament in 2020, after the end of the government alliance between the League and the 5 Star Movement. Previously, in fact, the same Parliament had denied the authorization for the similar Diciotti case, avoiding the trial of Salvini.
With Open Arms, however, the request was accepted after the Court of Ministers had recognized the existence of the crime details, opening the way to the indictment requested by the guided prosecutor, at the time, by Franco Lo Vol.
Next stop: the Cassation decides the fate of the process
The judicial case followed an irregular but rapid path: request for a sentence to six years, acquittal in December, and now the direct appeal in the Court of Cassation. The Supreme Court will be called to establish whether “defending the boundaries” can be considered lawful also in the light of international law.
A decision that could definitively close one of the most discussed processes of recent Italian history – or reopen it, with new reflections on justice, politics and the government itself.
