The special immigration unit of
Rome's tribunal on Friday did not validate the detention of all
12 migrants who were taken Wednesday to a newly opened Italian
hosting and repatriation centre in Gjader, Albania on the
grounds that their countries of provenance, Bangladesh and
Egypt, are not safe.
The judges said the migrants must be taken back to Italy.
Four others who were taken with the group of 12 to Albania by
the Italian navy vessel Libra on Wednesday were deemed
unsuitable to stay after health screenings in Albania revealed
that two were minors and another two were vulnerable.
The judges in particular ruled that "the denial to validate the
detention in the facilities and areas of Albania, considered as
Italian border or transit areas, is due to the impossibility of
recognizing as 'safe countries' the States of provenance of the
people held", a necessary precondition to implement accelerated
border procedures provided for by the new Italian scheme.
The 12 will return to Italy on a navy ship Saturday, landing in
Bari before being probably taken to an asylum seekers centre,
local sources said.
Although their asylum applications have been rejected, the
sources said, they have 14 days to appeal that decision.
Premier Giorgia Meloni's rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party
slammed "the judicial Left", claiming leftwing magistrates were
"helping" the parliamentary Left which has criticised the two
new centres in Albania.
The centre left, along with rights groups, has said the new
centres are needlessly expensive, with an estimated cost of some
800 million euros, and they allegedly unacceptably externalise
the migrant issue creating a "new Guantanamo" while in fact
processing a handful, 3,000 a year, of the well over 100,000
migrants that land in Italy annually.
But European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has
hailed the scheme as a model other countries can follow, and
Meloni said at an EU summit Thursday that she had received so
many requests for information on it that "all of Europe is
talking about the Italy-Albania model".
The FdI said on X Friday: "Absurd! The court does not validate
the detention of migrants in Albania. The judicial left comes to
the aid of the parliamentary left". The conservative party went
on:
"Some politicized magistrates have decided that there are no
safe countries of origin: it is impossible to detain those who
enter illegally, it is forbidden to repatriate illegal
immigrants.
"They would like to abolish Italy's borders, we will not allow
it".
Senate Speaker Ignazio La Russa, a co-founder and bigwig in FdI,
said his astonishment on the Rome court ruling rendered him
incapable of commenting on it.
He told reporters: "I was very, very astonished. But I do not
want to comment on it, because the astonishment surpasses any
comment".
The FdI's main partner, Deputy Premier and Transport Minister
Matteo Salvini's rightwing League party, also slammed the ruling
as "unacceptable".
"On the day of a hearing of the Open Arms trial against Matteo
Salvini, the decision not validating the detention of immigrants
in Albania is particularly unacceptable and grave", said the
League in a note. "Pro-immigrant judges should run for election,
but we know we will not be intimidated", said the note.
The leader of the third government party, centre-right post
Berlusconi Forza Italia (FI) leader, Deputy Premier and Foreign
Minister Antonio Tajani said judges should not prevent the
government from working.
"I am used to respecting the decisions of the judiciary but I
would also like the decisions of the executive and legislative
powers to be respected, because a democracy is based on the
tripartite division of powers," said Tajani.
"The judiciary must apply the laws, not change them or prevent
the executive from doing its job.
"Power always comes from the people, who chose this parliament
and this government.
"The will of the people must always be respected. We will move
forward with what President Von der Leyen said, for whom the
agreement between Italy and Albania is a model to follow".
Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said the government would
appeal the Rome ruling as far up as the supreme Court of
Cassation.
"I have respect for the judges. We will fight the battle within
the judicial mechanisms. A battle in the sense of affirmation in
terms of international, European and national law. We will
appeal and we will go all the way to the Supreme Court. Here the
government's right to activate accelerated procedures is denied:
doing in a month what otherwise takes three years", Piantedosi
said.
Piantedosi vowed to press on with the scheme saying it will
fulfill the predictions that it will be a model for other
countries to emulate and will eventually become enshrined in
European Union law.
"Not only will we move forward with the legal appeals but we
will also move forward with these initiatives because from 2026
what Italy is doing in Albania, and not only, will become
European law", he said.
Leaguers meanwhile staged a protest Friday in downtown Palermo
to express solidarity with their leader Salvini after local
prosecutors requested a six-year jail term for him on charges of
abduction and refusal to perform public acts for refusing the
disembarkation of 147 migrants rescued by the Spanish NGO Open
Arms vessel for 19 days when he was interior minister five years
ago.
Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban expressed support for Salvini
saying he "deserves a medal".
Palermo prosecutor Giorgia Righi, who received several threats
and insults on social media after requesting the six-year jail
term for Salvini, has been assigned a security detail, judicial
sources said Friday.
Giuseppe Santalucia, the head of the National Association of
Magistrates (ANM), the judiciary's union, said that media
tension and suspicions whipped up over a trial can produce
verbal violence and threats.
Returning to the Albania scheme, Meloni said an inquiry to the
European Commission presented by MEPs with the opposition
Democratic Party (PD), Five-Star Movement (M5S) and Green and
Left Alliance (AVS) "asking whether it intends to open an
infringement procedure against Italy" over the agreement with
Albania is a "shame that cannot pass unobserved.
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