Gregoretti case. Salvini: "I claim what I did, I saved lives. Conte? I expect truth from him"

• Gregoretti case.

  Salvini in Catania: "I'm on trial for fighting the smugglers"

• Gregoretti ship process: Saturday Salvini in Catania.

  Conte, Toninelli and Trenta are also expected

• Gregoretti, the hearing against Salvini postponed to November 20.

  The judge will hear Conte and Toninelli

• Gregoretti ship.

  Salvini at the Palace of Justice in Catania.

  Audience Gup.

  Pm solicits archiving

• Gregoretti ship, Salvini's defensive memo filed in Catania: "Two smugglers on board"

• Nave Gregoretti, Palazzo Chigi to Salvini's lawyers: "Never discussed on CDM"

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12 December 2020

"I am proud of what I have and what we have done. I have provided the judge with the numbers that speak of lives: in the summer 2018-summer 2019, summer before Salvini and summer after Salvini, we reduced the missing persons by 55%, from 1,694 to 757 , eliminated the number of corpses at sea, from 83 to 4, reducing landings by 80%, from 42,000 to 8,000: the numbers prove us right, we have saved lives ".

Matteo Salvini said this at a press conference in Catania after his spontaneous declarations in the preliminary hearing on the Gregoretti case.

In July 2019, around 100 migrants remained on the Coast Guard ship for 6 days due to the ban on disembarking the then minister, now under investigation for kidnapping.

On February 12, the approval for the authorization to proceed from the Senate chamber arrived.

"I claim and I don't forget - like Toninelli with his 'I don't remember' who took up an hour and a half of his two hours of statements - I don't go back and I don't forget what I did with my colleagues" continues Salvini.

"The success in our immigration operations is evident in the numbers and I will never fight political opponents in the courtroom."

"Minister Toninelli - recalls the leader of the League - with me signed the landing bans, the security decrees and will now vote to cancel them, but I do not comment on his words. He has a conception of coherence and personal dignity".

"Thirty was not a political minister, he responded calmly and serenely on the basis of what he was entitled to," Salvini said. The former Minister of Defense left the bunker room of the Bicocca prison in Catania at 1 pm, without making any statements. Trenta, accompanied by her lawyer, was heard during the second act of the preliminary hearing.

The leader of the League then underlines that from the Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, "I do not expect compliments, favors and lies, I expect the truth. He has said more than once that 'I was relocating, I did disembark. "There are also videos that we took to the courtroom. Don't say" I don't remember, I don't remember "like someone today." The premier will be heard on January 28 at Palazzo Chigi by the Gup of Catania as a witness in the Gregoretti proceedings.

Today the other two witnesses called, former ministers Elisabetta Trenta and Danilo Toninelli, were heard by the GUP Nunzio Sarpietro. "I answered all the questions that were asked to me in transparency and truth" said the former Minister of Transport as he came out of the bunker of the Bicocca prison in Catania where he deposed at the preliminary hearing on the Gregoretti case. "We have answered all the questions that we cannot enter due to compliance with the ongoing proceedings," he added. "The government's line was to make other European states interested in the placement of migrants. But each landing was a separate case", Toninelli added. And the lawyer Bongiorno, still referring to Toninelli's 'I don't remember' on the Open Arms case, recalled a post published by Toninelli on the Spanish ship. According to the defense, it confirms the government's shared choices. "In that courtroom an attempt is being made by a person who in fact claims to be a man who defended the Italian borders and the law said that he was responsible for the landings, and in the judicial acts he discharges the responsibilities on others. You understand the subject?" attacks the former minister.

In the coming weeks, ministers Luigi Di Maio and Luciana Lamorgese will also be heard. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte instead asked days ago the application of the second head of article 205 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which, in relation to the role, contemplates the possibility of being examined in the place where they exercise their office, in order guarantee the continuity and regularity of the function they are assigned to. The judge will hear him on January 28th, in Rome, at Palazzo Chigi. 

The preliminary hearing for the Open Arms case that sees Matteo Salvini under investigation will be held on January 9 in front of the Palermo gup Lorenzo Iannelli. The hearing was scheduled for this morning but given the concomitance with the preliminary hearing of the Gregoretti case in Catania, the defense asked for a postponement to another date. And the gup a little while ago welcomed it. In the classroom the prosecutor Geri Ferrara. Salvini is under investigation for kidnapping and omission of office documents for preventing the ship of the Spanish NGO Open Arms from docking in Lampedusa in August 2019. On board there were 151 migrants, who remained at sea for 19 days.

Salvini then speaking of the next President of the Republic, said: "whether new or old, he must be a president of everyone. February 2022 is too far away ... but I'm sorry that parties like the Democratic Party consider this step as their own. Certainly the Lega and the center-right will have a fundamental role in the appointment of the President of the Republic ". And he adds: "I'm not working to push someone, but to build. I hope that the government goes all the way on the 'family Christmas' project, certainly without balls, but sharing these moments with relatives and friends, without leaving alone. millions of elderly ... then a different game opens in January ".