Italian court rejects outsourced detention of first migrants sent to Albania

The migrant processing centre at the port of Shengjin (Vlasov Sulaj/AP)

A court in Italy on Friday ruled against the government’s move to detain 12 migrants at newly opened centres in Albania, highlighting a key hurdle in the administration’s plan to outsource some of its migrant processing to the Balkan country.

The 12 migrants were part of the first batch of 16 migrants to be sent to the two centres that opened last week under a five-year deal to host 3,000 migrants per month picked up by the Italian coastguard, to vet them for possible asylum in Italy or to send them back to their countries.