Italian court clears vice premier of illegally detaining migrants on rescue ship

Italy’s Vice Premier Matteo Salvini arriving at a court in Sicily on Friday (Alberto Lo Bianco/LaPresse via AP)

A court in Sicily has found Italy’s Vice Premier Matteo Salvini not guilty of illegally detaining 100 migrants aboard a humanitarian rescue ship when he was interior minister.

The court dropped all the charges against Mr Salvini in relation to an incident in 2019, when he refused to allow the migrants to leave the Open Arms rescue ship at Italy’s southernmost island of Lampedusa.