The finance guard on Tuesday seized the Mare Jonio NGO run migrant rescue ship off Lampedusa, interior ministry sources said.
Ragusa prosecutors on Tuesday placed the German captain and the mission chief of the Eleonore
ship of the migrant rescue NGO Mission Lifeline under investigation on suspicion of favouring illegal immigration.
The captain declared a state of emergency on board and defied an entry ban Monday, landing at Pozzallo in Sicily.
The Eleonore landed 1034 migrants.
The probe is led by prosecutors Fabio D'Anna and Francesco Riccio.
The Mare Jonio was one of two NGO migrant rescue ships at the centre of the latest standoffs with outgoing interior minister and anti-migrant League party leader Matteo Salvini which on Monday landed their migrants in Sicily and on Lampedusa.
The German NGO migrant rescue ship Eleonore on Monday entered the Sicilian port of Pozzallo near Ragusa.
The ship, run by the NGO Mission Lifeline, had over 100 migrants on board.
It declared a state of emergency on board and ignored an Italian entry ban issued by Salvini.
Police and coast guard officials were waiting on the dock for it to tie up.
Ragusa prosecutors opened a probe into Eleonore's arrival. They instructed flying squad officers to carry out investigations to see if any criminal offences had been committed.
The Ragusa prefect, meanwhile, is to decide on possible sanctions for breaching a security decree's ban on entering Italian waters.
Salvini's closed ports policy may be changed by the likely new 5-Star-Democratic Party government.
Italian NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans said Monday it had just heard that the Italian coast guard would allow the last 31 migrants aboard the Mare Jonio ship to land at Lampedusa for health reasons.
"Their odyssey is over and a bit of humanity can be glimpsed on the horizon," it said.
"Welcome to Europe!" Centre-left Democratic Party (PD) leader Nicola Zingaretti on Monday told Premier-designate Giusepe Conte that a "radical" change was needed from the last government's closed ports policy led by Salvini.
Another NGO migrant rescue ship, the Alan Kurdi, is still engaged in standoffs with Salvini.
But amid the high-profile standoffs with the NGOs, lower-profile so-called 'ghost landings of migrants directly from north Africa, not picked up by NGO ships, have been continuing apace.
"What is happening in these hours in the Mediterranean, amid continuous landings on our coasts and inhuman bans, confirms that the immigration policies of the last few months have not solved anything," said Zingaretti.
"I once more ask premier(-designate) Conte to immediately tackle the situation of persons blocked at sea in conditions of humanitarians emergency and, obviously, we continue to ask that we should gear up for a radical turnaround in the policies on these issues." The PD's likely government partner the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) have said they will revise Salvini's policies according to observations by President Sergio Mattarella who said some were not in line with international treaties.
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