“Because of this decision, the government will have to pay compensation — with the money of honest Italian citizens who pay taxes — to people who tried to enter Italy illegally, violating the law of the Italian state,” Meloni wrote in her post on X.
The coast guard ship Diciotti rescued 190 migrants from an overcrowded boat off the Italian island of Lampedusa on Aug. 16, 2018, after they were denied entry to Malta, but as soon as they tried to land on the Italian coast, then-Interior Minister Matteo Salvini declared all of the country’s ports closed.
Only 13 of the migrants were allowed to enter the country as they were evacuated for emergency medical treatment, leaving the other 177 migrants stranded on the Italian coast guard ship for 10 days.
Salvini, who is now deputy prime minister of the Italian government, called the Court of Cassation’s decision on Friday a “disgrace.”
“Let the judges pay and welcome the illegal immigrants if they care so much,” Salvini wrote in his post on X.
Salvini was facing a prosecution at the time for allegedly kidnapping the migrants on the boat, but the Italian Senate rejected a request to investigate him.
