Italy committee votes against fresh Salvini migrant trial

• The Senate committee is tasked with advising the upper house of parliament, which will vote at a date yet to be set.
• It is not the first such case against Salvini.
• The preliminary hearing in that trial has been postponed three times due to the coronavirus pandemic and is now scheduled to take place on October 3.

ROME: A special committee voted Tuesday against Italy's far-right chief Matteo Salvini standing trial for allegedly illegally detaining migrants at sea, though the final decision rests with the Senate.

The Senate committee is tasked with advising the upper house of parliament, which will vote at a date yet to be set.

Prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Palermo accuse Salvini of abusing his powers as then interior minister in August 2019 to illegally prevent more than 80 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean from disembarking the Open Arms charity ship.

Ministers cannot be tried for actions taken while in office unless their parliamentary immunity is revoked by the Senate.

The head of the far-right League insists the decision to stop the migrants from getting off the ship until a deal was brokered with EU countries to take them in had been taken collectively within the government.

It is not the first such case against Salvini.

In February the Senate voted to strip him of his parliamentary immunity so he could stand trial for blocking migrants from disembarking from a coastguard boat last July.

The preliminary hearing in that trial has been postponed three times due to the coronavirus pandemic and is now scheduled to take place on October 3.