Carola Rackete cleared of all charges: "She had a duty to bring migrants to safety"

"Carola Rackete has acted in the fulfillment of the rescue duty foreseen by the national and international law of the sea".

With these reasons, the investigating judge of the court of Agrigento Micaela Raimondo closed the investigation against the commander of Sea Watch 3, who in April had already been definitively acquitted of the accusation of resistance to a public officer and violence against a warship.

The new provision instead concerns what happened three days before when the 33-year-old German decided to enter Italian territorial waters without authorization with the ship, which was stationed in international waters in front of Lampedusa. The accusation of refusal of obedience to a warship was joined by that of aiding and abetting illegal immigration for having allowed 53 immigrants to enter Italian territory.

The facts are known. Rackete on 29 June 2019 was arrested in Italy and then released after a landing of migrants for the alleged ramming of a patrol boat of the Guardia di Finanza.

The commander "acted in the fulfillment of duty", writes the investigating judge, "because the port of Tripoli could not be considered a safe place". The judge cites a report by the High Commissioner for the United Nations which emphasizes that "thousands of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in Libya are in arbitrary detention conditions and are subjected to torture".

The comment of Salvini, who with Carola Rackete engaged in a tough battle with declarations: “So ramming an Italian military patrol boat with men on board is not a crime. Let's go back to the times of the pirates. No comment ”, tweeted the then Minister of the Interior.

(Unioneonline / L)