The Italian Senate has voted on Thursday to withdraw the immunity of the League's leader and former Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, to be prosecuted for alleged abuses against migrants for having decided to delay the disembarkation of migrants and refugees rescued by the NGO ship Open Arms in August 2019.

The vote in the Senate on the proposal to confirm Salvini's immunity has been rejected with 149 votes against and 141 votes in favor , as reported by the Italian newspaper 'La Repubblica'.

In response, Salvini has charged through his account on the social network Twitter against "cowards, smugglers and those who prefer the chair to dignity." I am proud to have defended Italy: I would do it again and I will do it again, "he said.

Thus, he stressed that "in this July the landings are six times greater than those of the same period a year ago, with the League in the Government." "I advance with my head held high and with a clear conscience, and I will look my children in the eye because I have fulfilled my duty with determination and common sense," he said.

The events date back to August 2019, when Salvini was Minister of the Interior. As head of the Interior, he decided to delay the landing of dozens of migrants rescued by the rescue ship of the Spanish NGO Open Arms.

Prosecutors in the case maintain that Salvini's actions may be considered as kidnapping of people on a ship. The former interior minister defends that his intervention was a legitimate way of trying to force the European Union to share the burden of refugees and migrants arriving on the Italian coast.

In February, the Senate gave the green light to criminal proceedings against Salvini in a similar case regarding the delay in the July 2019 landing of 131 migrants who were on the 'Gregoretti', a ship of the Italian Coast Guard. The preliminary hearing of the trial for the disembarkation of the 'Gregoretti' migrants is scheduled for October.

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