Italy's Salvini faces verdict for blocking migrants at sea. Case weighs limits of stemming migration

MILAN (AP) — Italy’s deputy premier, Matteo Salvini, has sounded defiant ahead of Friday’s court verdict in Sicily for blocking some 100 migrants at sea on a humanitarian rescue boat in 2019 when he was interior minister.

Salvini, who leads the Euroskeptic, anti-migrant League, told a rally last week that “defending the borders, the dignity, the laws, the honor of a country cannot ever be a crime.”

He has vowed to enter the court in Palermo with his “head held high” to hear a court’s verdict on whether he is guilty of illegally detaining the migrants aboard the Open Arms rescue ship in Italy's southernmost island of Lampedusa for five days in August 2019. He is also charged with failing to fulfill his public duties.

Prosecutors have demanded a six-year jail sentence. A sentence of over five years would also automatically bar him from office. Whatever Friday's sentencing, it won't have immediate effect as verdicts in Italy are only considered final once two levels of appeals are exhausted, a process that can take years. He has already said he won't resign.

In August 2019, Open Arms approached Italy with 150 migrants rescued at sea, some in the Maltese rescue area, with Lampedusa the closest port. They spent 10 days in international waters and another five days within sight of Lampedusa, with those onboard growing increasingly agitated amid deteriorating hygienic conditions. Some migrants threw themselves overboard, and minors were evacuated during the stand-off.

Eventually, a court ordered the remaining 89 people onboard to be allowed to disembark in Lampedusa.

Open Arms' Italian lawyer, Arturo Salerni, dismissed Salvini's claim that he was defending Italy's borders, saying it was his duty as a public official to protect the human rights of people on board.

“The supreme duty, especially of those who belong to governments, is to defend international laws and conventions, and people's rights,'' said Salerni, who is representing Open Arms as an injured party in the trial. ”It cannot be that the interior minister ... can deprive anyone of freedom."

The Open Arms standoff was just one of more than 20 during Salvini's hardline stand against migration when he was interior minister from 2018-2019 during the first government of former Premier Giuseppe Conte. He closed Italian ports to humanitarian rescue ships and accused the groups that rescued migrants at sea of effectively encouraging smugglers.

In another incident, a German captain, Carola Rackete, entered the Lampedusa port in June 2019 against Salvini’s orders after declaring a state of emergency on her boat, the Sea-Watch 3, which had been carrying 40 rescued people for some 16 days. She was soon arrested. Italy eventually dropped charges of aiding illegal migration against her.

Now transport minister in Premier Giorgia Meloni’s far-right-led government, Salvini has the support of the premier and other ministers in the Palermo trial. He also has won the solidarity of anti-migrant lawmakers from across Europe, who appeared with him recently in Brussels wearing T-shirts with his face that read “Guilty for having defended Italy.”

Since taking power in 2022, Meloni has moved to crack down on migration, striking deals with northern African nations in a bid to prevent departures while also setting up still-dormant centers in Albania aimed to vet migrants rescued at sea in the non-EU country without setting foot in Italy.

"Salvini gets the solidarity of the entire government,'' Meloni told the Italian Senate on Wednesday, to a standing ovation from right-wing lawmakers.

He also got the backing of tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has publicly supported Italy's crackdown on migration, criticizing a judge's decision that stymied Italy's plans to screen migrants in Albania. In a post on X on Thursday, Musk said that it is “crazy that Salvini is being tried for defending Italy.”

AP visual journalist Paolo Santalucia contributed from Rome.

Open Arms founder Oscar Camps talks to the media as he arrives at a at Palermo's court room where a trial against former Italian minister of interior Matteo Salvini, accused for the kidnapping of migrants, is being held, Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

Former minister of interior Matteo Salvini, second from left, walks past Open Arms founder Oscar Camps, right, outside Palermo's court, Italy, Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

Former Interior minister Matteo Salvini leaves the Senate prior to a vote on lifting his immunity for a trial on Aug 2019 Open Arms case, in Rome Thursday, July 30, 2020. (Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse via AP, File)

FILE - A man who threw himself in the water from the Open Arms vessel, is intercepted by the Italian Coast guards as he tried to swim to the island of Lampedusa, southern Italy, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2019. (AP Photo/Francisco Gentico, File)

CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) — Dozens of people are presumed dead and about 100 injured, most of them seriously, following a fire at a Swiss Alps bar during a New Year’s celebration, police said Thursday.

“Several tens of people” were killed at the bar, Le Constellation, Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said.

Work is underway to identify the victims and inform their families but “that will take time and for the time being it is premature to give you a more precise figure," Gisler said.

Beatrice Pilloud, attorney general of the Valais Canton, said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire. Experts have not yet been able to go inside the wreckage.

“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Pilloud said.

Officials called the blaze an “embrasement généralisé,” a firefighting term describing how a blaze can trigger the release of combustible gases that can then ignite violently and cause what English-speaking firefighters would call a flashover or a backdraft.

“This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare,” said Mathias Rénard, head of the regional government.

The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theater at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, Rénard said.

Helicopters and ambulances rushed to the scene to assist victims, including some from different countries, officials said.

“We are devastated,” Frédéric Gisler, commander of the Valais Cantonal police, said during a news conference.

The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theater at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, according to regional councilor Mathias Rénard.

The municipality had banned New Year’s Eve fireworks due to lack of rainfall in the past month, according to its website.

In a region busy with tourists skiing on the slopes, the authorities have called on the local population to show caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could require medical resources that are already overwhelmed.

The community is in the heart of the Swiss Alps, just 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of the Matterhorn, one of the most famous Alpine peaks, and 130 kilometers (81 miles) south of Zurich.

The highest point of Crans-Montana, with a population of 10,000 residents, sits at an elevation of nearly 3,000 meters (1.86 miles), according to the municipality’s website, which says officials are seeking to move away from a tourist culture and attract high-tech research and development.

The municipality was formed only nine years ago, on Jan. 1, 2017, when multiple towns merged. It extends over 590 hectares (2.3 square miles) from the Rhône Valley to the Plaine Morte glacier.

Crans-Montana is one of the top race venues on the World Cup circuit in Alpine skiing and will host the next world championships over two weeks in February 2027.

In four weeks’ time, the resort will host the best men’s and women’s downhill racers for their last events before going to the Milan Cortina Olympics, which open Feb. 6.

Crans-Montana also is a premium venue in international golf. The Crans-sur-Sierre club stages the European Masters each August on a picturesque course with stunning mountains views.

From left, Mathias Reynard, State Councillor and president of the Council of State of the Canton of Valais, Stephane Ganzer, State Councillor and head of the Department of Security, Institutions and Sport of the Canton of Valais, Frederic Gisler, Commander of the Valais Cantonal Police, Beatrice Pilloud, Attorney General of the Canton of Valais and Nicole Bonvin-Clivaz, Vice-President of the Municipal Council of Crans-Montana during a press conference in Lens, following a fire that broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)

A skier walks in the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)

A banner stating that fireworks are prohibited due to the risk of fire is pictured near the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)

Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)

Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)

Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)

Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)