The Italian writer Roberto Saviano has gone on trial for calling Italy’s new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, a “bastard” after she said NGO boats that had attempted to rescue refugees should be sunk.
Meloni, the leader of Brothers of Italy, a party with neo-fascist origins, who had said Rome should “repatriate migrants and sink the boats that rescued them”, sued Saviano for criminal defamation, and last year a judge in Rome ruled that the writer should be tried.
