Italy's deputy premier, Matteo Salvini, is awaiting Friday's verdict in Sicily for blocking around 100 migrants at sea on a humanitarian rescue boat in 2019 during his tenure as interior minister. Salvini, who leads the Euroskeptic, anti-migrant League, has maintained a defiant stance, emphasizing that 'defending the borders, the dignity, the laws, the honor of a country cannot ever be a crime.'
The incident in question involved the Open Arms rescue ship, where Salvini is accused of detaining migrants for five days in Italy's southernmost island of Lampedusa in August 2019. Prosecutors have requested a six-year jail sentence, which could potentially bar him from office if the sentence exceeds five years.
