Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini accuses migrants of hijacking rescue ship

At 14.50 (Italian time) the Italian Coastguard ship Diciotti finally managed to dock in the port of Trapani with 67 migrants on board.

A legal process is pending on two of the migrants, they are accused of hijacking the rescue ship and of violence.

The two were initially rescued from the ship Vos Thalassa and it’s supposed that the crew of this ship was taking them back to Libya.

The police ship boarded the Coastguard one to quiz the passengers, meanwhile many police and carabinieri cars were waiting for the docking in the port of Trapani.

The Italian Vice-prime minister and Interior minister Salvini:  “before letting them go down from the ship I want to know names and nationality […] they’ll have to  walk out with handcuffs”

From Innsbruck in Austria, where he joined the informal interior minister’s meeting he says “Someone is joking on italian people” and continues “if somebody lied, they’ll have to pay”.

Since the new Government took office, it brought many more policies on migrant arrivals in Italy, while it asks Europe to stop the flow of arrivals on its shores.

Public opinion is divided all over the country-

The Mayor of Trapani, Giacomo Tranchida, reported: “If a poor beggar falls into the sea, we must save him… it is the law of the sea”

The Judicial Authority of Trapani took charge of the case, and the investigations continue, but for now there are no indictments.

The bishop of Trapani, Pietro Maria Tragnelli, prays for the authorities to hurry up and get to “quick solutions”.

Meanwhile in other ports of Sicily the authorities helped more than 80 people in docking this morning.

“I don’t want to be played. Until the facts won’t be clear, as interior minister, vice-prime minister and dad I won’t give any authorization to them to come down” this is how Mr. Salvini ended his commentary.