Italy’s Matteo Salvini loses immunity and will face trial in migrant ship kidnap case

Far-right leader accused of detaining more than 100 migrants aboard coastguard ship for six days while waiting for other EU states to take them in

Then interior minister could be jailed for up to 15 years if convicted in potentially career-ending trial

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Italian far-right leader Matteo Salvini gestures at the Senate ahead of the vote on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 5:13am, 13 Feb 2020Updated: 5:28am, 13 Feb 2020

Italian senators voted on Wednesday to lift immunity for far-right leader Matteo Salvini, opening the way for a potentially career-ending trial over accusations that he illegally detained migrants at sea last year.

The decision gives magistrates in Sicily the go-ahead to press charges over his decision to keep more than 100 migrants blocked aboard a coastguard ship for six days last July as he waited for other European Union states to agree to take them in.

Salvini, who was serving as interior minister at the time, could eventually face up to 15 years in jail if found guilty at the end of Italy’s tortuous legal process. Conviction could also bar him from political office, dashing his ambitions to lead a future government.

The upper house Senate voted 152-76 in favour of removing the legal protection that had shielded him as a former cabinet minister. The ruling coalition of the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement, the centre-left Democratic Party and other small centrist and leftist groups supported lifting his immunity.

Italian law enforcement officers at the port of Catania in August 2018 wait for information on whether to allow a group of 177 migrants to disembark from a coastguard vessel. Photo: EPA-EFE

Salvini’s opposition allies voted against, while his own League party boycotted the vote.