(Reuters) Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, faces a possible six-year prison term if a court finds him guilty on Friday of kidnapping a boat full of migrants who were held offshore Italy for almost three weeks in 2019.
Salvini was interior minister at the time and has always denied the charges, arguing that he was defending national interests by trying to prevent a Spanish charity rescue ship from bringing 147 asylum seekers to Italy.
Prosecutors in Sicily say he is guilty of illegally detaining the migrants and of dereliction of duty for closing the ports to them. Salvini, the head of the far-right League party, portrays himself as a victim of judicial persecution.
