France has insisted there was "no
violation" of Italian sovereignty when French customs police
carried out a urine test on a Nigerian asylum seeker in the
office of an Italian migrant NGO in the Italian city on the
French border near Grenoble.
After Turin police opened a probe into the incident, which
Italy protested, France said Sunday there was only a strict
application of a 1990 accord which allows controls to be carried
out on each side of the border.
Turin prosecutors on Tuesday began questioning witnesses to
Friday night's incident.
The probe, at the moment against person or persons unknown,
posits possible charges of abuse of office, private violence and
violation of domicile, judicial sources stressed to Italian
reporters.
Investigators are also weighing the offence of illegal
search, sources said.
Prosecutor Armando Spataro is awaiting a more detailed report
on what happened from the Turin police headquarters, local
sources said.
The agents who carried out the raid have not been identified,
sources said.
That operation can be immediately carried out if French
authorities decide to collaborate, judicial sources told Italian
reporters.
Otherwise, an international investigation warrant may be
necessary, the sources said.
Meanwhile the NGO, Rainbow4Africa, said "the French should
apologise to the Italians".
In France, government sources aid they owed no apology to the
NGO because no rule or law was broken.
An internal probe has, however, been launched to weigh the
conduct of the customs police, the sources said.
The premises used for the urine test have been used by French
customs police two or three times a month, sources at the
ministry of public action and accounts of minister Gerald
Darmanin told reporters.
Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right nationalist Brothers
of Italy (FdI) party, on Tuesday called on Premier Paolo
Gentiloni to report to parliament on the incident.
"The country's role is at stake," said Meloni, a member of a
centre-right alliance with the anti-migrant Euroskeptic League
of Matteo Salvini and the centre-right Forza Italia (FI) of
ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.
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