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  • Gregoretti case, Salvini: "Ready to prison with head held high"

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February 12, 2020 The Senate authorized Matteo Salvini's trial for the affair of the Navy ship Gregoretti. League senators left the room and did not take part in the vote. The agenda presented by FI and FdI to deny the authorization to proceed was rejected. The number of for and against will be announced only this evening, around 8 pm: the senators who did not participate in the vote will be able to do so until late afternoon by communicating their vote to the secretary senators. The outcome of the ballot will be made official only then.

Salvini: defending my homeland was my duty
It is the League secretary himself who takes the floor in the Senate room on the Gregoretti case: "If I had had to reason out of opportunism and personal interest, I would not have made the decision I made because it is about a trial, not a walk I say what I say out of respect for the position I held, of the Italians and my two children who go to school and have the right to believe that dad is often away from home not because he kidnaps people but because he defends the borders of his country is his duty. I believe that defending my country was my duty. Not a right: a duty. " Salvini reiterates: "The defense of the homeland is a sacred duty, I believe I have defended my homeland, I do not ask for a prize for this but if there must be a trial that exists. In that courtroom I will not go to defend myself but to claim that that, not alone, but collegially we did ". And he adds "If I had had to think through opportunism and personal convenience I would not have made the decision I made: it is a process and not a walk". And he concludes "We make a judge decide, we leave this room and we make him decide. By now the king is naked, you can go on for a few months or weeks but in democracy the judgment is given by the people". "I can't take it as a criminal anymore, there is a limit to everything."

The League leader is accused of aggravated kidnapping : for the magistrates he would have illegally prevented the landing of the 131 migrants who at the end of July were on board the coastguard ship that had rescued them off the coast of Sicily. Before the intervention on twitter he quotes a phrase from the poet Ezra Pound: "Ready to intervene in the Senate, with his head held high and with a clear conscience of those who defended his land and his people. 'If a man is not willing to fight for his own ideas, or his ideas are worth nothing, or he is worth nothing. "

In their odg, FI and FdI ask the Senate to reject the request of the Court claiming that Salvini acted for the protection of a constitutionally relevant state interest and in agreement with the government. The document will be voted by open ballot: a majority is required to approve it. number of members of the Assembly: 160 votes. A goal that is difficult to reach considering that the 60 senators of the League do not participate in the vote.

"Out of respect for Matteo Salvini's request, the Lega group certainly does not participate in the vote" on the FI-FdI agenda to deny the authorization to proceed against the Lega leader on the Gregoretti case. The League leader, Massimiliano Romeo, announced it in the Chamber during the explanations of vote.

Stefani: landing delay pending redistribution
"It is clear that the migrants' relocation mechanisms were not operational as of July 26, 2019 and that a path was being worked out for their redistribution. So it took the mere technical time for them to disembark." So in the Chamber the senator of the Lega Erika Stefani, rapporteur on the Gregoretti case, recalling the content of some emails also mentioned in Matteo Salvini's defensive memory among government representatives, before the landing of the people, stopped from 27 to 31 July before landing at port of Augusta.

"Once the Junta has been empowered from its main function, bent for political reasons, at this point the necessary seat in order to be able to find the truth turns out to be only the procedural seat".

Scuffle in the Senate Hall between M5s and Lega
Senator De Vecchis della Lega and pentastellato Pellegrini have almost come to the hands, reports who was present at the dispute that broke out in the Senate Hall after Salvini's intervention on the Gregoretti affair. Quaestor De Poli intervened to restore calm.

Castaldi (M5S): Government benches empty out of respect for Parliament
"Salvini and respect for institutions are two parallel lines that never meet, we now know this well. He also said a trifle today, building a controversy without foundation. During the debate on the Gregoretti case, the government benches were empty for the respect that the executive owes to the Senate for an act, the request for authorization to proceed, which is the exclusive competence of Parliament. I, like other government officials, were present in the courtroom but sitting on our benches as senators, because this was our duty today Salvini instead confuses the ministries and chambers with the stage of a perennial electoral rally. " So in a note the Senator of the 5 Star MoVement Gianluca Castaldi, Undersecretary for Relations with Parliament.