M5S members to vote on Salvini immunity

(ANSA) - Rome, February 18 - 5-Star Movement (M5S) members on Monday are holding online consultations to decide whether M5S's lawmakers on a Senate panel should vote to lift League leader and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's parliamentary immunity to face kidnapping charges over migrants held on board the Diciotti coast guard ship in a standoff with the EU last August.
    Magistrates in the Sicilian city of Catania have requested authorization from parliament to proceed against Salvini, who is also deputy premier.
    Salvini has said the case should not be allowed to proceed as he was doing his job as minister.
    The M5S is the League's partner in Premier Giuseppe Conte's coalition government.
    The movement appears split on whether to vote on the immunity panel for or against allowing the kidnapping charges against their ally Salvini to proceed.
    "I can guarantee that the government will not collapse," Salvini said.
    "I don't fear the court of the people".
    Salvini also said that "we're all in the same boat" referring to Conte, fellow Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio and Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli, who wrote in statements to the panel that the interior minister was implementing the policy of the whole government.
    Di Maio is the M5S leader and Toninelli is also a member of the movement.