Italy Must Compensate Stranded Migrants, High Court Rules
Italy Must Compensate Stranded Migrants, High Court Rules
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni calls decision involving the coast guard ship Diciotti “highly questionable” and “very frustrating.”
Italy must pay compensation to migrants who were not allowed to disembark from the Diciotti ship in August 2018, the country’s highest court ruled on Friday.
The 177 migrants who were held aboard the ship for 10 days were deprived of their personal freedom, Italy’s Court of Cassation ruled on Friday, and are therefore entitled to compensation from the Italian state, the amount of which will be determined in a later ruling.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the decision “highly questionable” and “very frustrating.” She said it would not help “bring citizens closer to the institutions.”
“Because of this decision, the government will have to pay compensation — with the money of honest Italian citizens who pay taxes — to people who tried to enter Italy illegally, violating the law of the Italian state,” Meloni wrote in her post on X.
The coast guard ship Diciotti rescued 190 migrants from an overcrowded boat off the Italian island of Lampedusa on Aug. 16, 2018, after they were denied entry to Malta, but as soon as they tried to land on the Italian coast, then-Interior Minister Matteo Salvini declared all of the country’s ports closed.
Only 13 of the migrants were allowed to enter the country as they were evacuated for emergency medical treatment, leaving the other 177 migrants stranded on the Italian coast guard ship for 10 days.
Salvini, who is now deputy prime minister of the Italian government, called the Court of Cassation’s decision on Friday a “disgrace.”
“Let the judges pay and welcome the illegal immigrants if they care so much,” Salvini wrote in his post on X.
Salvini was facing a prosecution at the time for allegedly kidnapping the migrants on the boat, but the Italian Senate rejected a request to investigate him.
Credit: https://www.politico.eu/
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