Italian court set to issue verdict in vice premier’s migrant boat kidnap trial

Former Interior minister Matteo Salvini leaves the Senate prior to a vote on lifting his immunity for a trial in Rome (Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse via AP)

A court in Sicily is expected to announce its verdict on whether Italy’s vice premier was guilty of illegally detaining 100 migrants aboard a humanitarian rescue ship when he was interior minister.

Matteo Salvini faces up to six years in jail if convicted on charges of kidnapping for the 2019 incident when he refused to allow the migrants to leave the Open Arms rescue ship at Italy’s southern-most island of Lampedusa.