In a protracted process, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini was found not guilty of preventing a migrant rescue boat from docking in Italy in 2019.
After prosecutors requested a six-year jail sentence, judges in the Sicilian city of Palermo cleared him of two counts of kidnapping and dereliction of duty.
Salvini, the leader of the right-wing Lega party and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s ally in the government, has consistently maintained that his only wrongdoing was to “protect Italy.”
He told reporters outside the court on Friday, “I have kept my promises, combating mass immigration and reducing departures, landings, and deaths at sea.”
Salvini hugged his fiancée, film, and clenched his fists in triumph upon hearing the verdict.
