The Attorney General of the Court of Cassation has requested that the appeal by the Palermo prosecutors be rejected and that Minister Matteo Salvini's acquittal be upheld, based on the absence of evidence, on charges of kidnapping and refusal to perform official duties in the case of the Spanish NGO ship Open Arms.

The affair dates back to August 2019 when Salvini was Interior Minister.

During its closing argument, the Attorney General's Office referred to the brief filed in recent weeks, which stated that the appeal by the Palermo prosecutors "fails to demonstrate, with a view to challenging the contested sentence, the existence of all the elements of the alleged crimes, in order to demonstrate the validity of the prosecution's case."

The Lega leader was accused of having refused to allow the disembarkation of 147 migrants aboard the Open Arms for several days.

(Unioneonline)

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