A German migrant ship captain defied an Italian naval blockade to bring African migrants to port in June 2019. A judge in the Sicilian city of Agrigento ruled she will not stand trial.
After entering the port of Lampedusa in defiance of Italian orders, authorities arrested the migrant ship captain, Carola Rackete. She let 41 migrants disembark and hit a patrol boat in the process.
Released soon after, investigations into Rackete’s actions continued. They culminated in the ruling, which backed an assessment by the state prosecutor, that her decision was solely to save the lives of the migrants. They were at sea for two weeks without a safe port.
“Saving human lives in danger is the overriding duty,” Rackete’s lawyer, Salvatore Tesoriero, told Reuters.
German charity Sea-Watch
German charity Sea-Watch runs Rackete’s ship. They challenged the tough measures introduced by then Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to close Italy’s ports to private rescue boats. As leader of the anti-immigrant League party, he saw this as an opportunity to curb the human tide of migrants.
Salvini launched an attack against Rackete on his social media accounts at the time. He called her a “pirate” and “outlaw” for docking her ship Sea-Watch 3, against Italian orders. In turn, Rackete launched a defamation case against him. This is still ongoing.
Salvini declined to comment on Wednesday’s decision, but his political ally Giorgia Meloni, who heads the far-right Brothers of Italy party, denounced the ruling.
“What respect can Italy have in the world if the state is allowed to be humiliated in this way,” she wrote on Twitter.
