A probe against Interior Minister
Matteo Salvini for allegedly kidnapping 177 Eritrean migrants
aboard the Diciotti coast guard ship will be a "boomerang",
Salvini said Monday.
An Agrigento prosecutor has placed Salvini under
investigation for kidnapping the migrants, who were allegedly
unlawfully held for five days at sea and then another five days
at Catania harbour.
Salvini said he was not "cowed" and that he would not ask the
Senate to refuse to lift his immunity from prosecution.
"I only did my job as minister and I'm ready to do it again,"
Salvini said.
Some 100 of the migrants will go to a Catholic centre at
Rocca di Papa near Rome, Pope Francis said.
Albania and Ireland will take about 20 each.
Three Egyptians and a Bangladeshi have been arrested on
charges of being the migrant traffickers.
The other deputy premier, Industry and Labour Minister Luigi
Di Maio, said in the next such case Italy "will negotiate
directly with individual States".
He said the government was defending Italy's interests.
Most of the Eritrean migrants from the Diciotti will be moved
from a Messina hotspot to a Catholic Church centre at Ariccia
near Rome, the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI) told a news
agency on Monday.
"They will be moved as soon as possible, in the coming hours,
to the Arccia centre run by Auxiluim, pending their transfer to
the many diocese who have given their availability: Turin,
Brescia, Bologna, Agrigento, Cassano all'Jonio, Rossano
Calabro, to cite only those I know about," CEI's head of social
communications, Father Ivan Maffeis, told the SIR religious news
agency.
The CEI agreed to take in about 100 of the migrants while
Albania and Ireland took 20 each to end a stand-off after
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini kept them aboard saying they
would not land until the EU agred to take them.
Meanwhile Germany said funding the EU budget is an
obligation laid down in the EU's founding treaties, commenting
on Italy's threat to withhold some of its payment unless
the EU agreed to take in the Diciotti migrants.
EU budget funding "was ratified in the European treaties, and
it is valid for all," said Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman
Steffen Seibert.
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