
A defiant Matteo Salvini, Italy's deputy prime minister, defended his hard line against illegal migration in court on Friday, saying he had done a "useful service" in blocking migrants from disembarking at an Italian port in 2019.
Salvini, the head of the far-right League party and a partner in current Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's coalition, denies charges of deprivation of liberty and abuse of office over the incident in August 2019, when he was part of another government.