ITALY: Another NGO ship detained in Sicily ― 60-day detention for NGO ship impounded in August ― Supreme Court questions constitutionality of detention without validation ― Senior official under investigation in Libyan warlord affair ― Local governments request crisis talks on hosting asylum applicants | European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE)

Another NGO search and rescue (SAR) ship has been detained by authorities in Sicily.
The SAR ship that was impounded in late August has been issued with a 60-day detention order.
The Supreme Court of Cassation has ruled that asylum applicants must be released immediately if their detention has not been validated.
A senior aide to Minister of Justice Carol Nordio has been put under investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s office in Rome in relation to the government’s decision to release a Libyan general who was subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant.
The National Association of Municipalities (ANCI) has requested an urgent meeting with the government to discuss issues relating to the hosting of asylum applicants.

Another NGO search and rescue (SAR) ship has been detained by authorities in Sicily. On 9 September, Sea-Watch reported that its Aurora vessel had been detained in the port of Pozzallo after its crew disembarked 75 people that they had rescued in international waters on 6 September. According to the NGO, the Aurora had been assigned to the port of Reggio Calabria on the Italian mainland but it was unable to reach it due to a shortage of fuel. As a result, the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Rome changed the assigned port in the morning of 7 September. However, the ship was eventually detained on the grounds that it could have reached Reggio Calabria contrary to its own statements and the MRCC’s decision. Commenting on the Ministry of the Interior’s decision to impound the ship, Isabell Nohr from Sea-Watch said: “The detention is based on flimsy grounds and is part of a political strategy designed to make sea rescue impossible and endanger human lives”. “Instead of ensuring compliance with international obligations, the Italian government is blocking recuse ships and trying by all means to prevent people fleeing their countries from reaching Europe,” she added.

The detention of the Aurora comes less than two weeks after the NGO SAR ship Mediterranea was detained in the Sicilian port of Trapani also for defying a port order. In addition to the €10,000 fine which the NGO reported on 25 August, on 2 September, it announced that the Prefect of Trapani had also issued a 60-day detention order. “We are being accused of “serious, premeditated, and repeated” disobedience to the [Ministry of the Interior]’s order to reach the distant port of Genoa with traumatised shipwreck survivors on board, who are not only affected by their detention in Libya but also by the attempted murder they suffered at sea,” it posted on social media, adding: “Our fault is having said “SignorNO!” to an absurd and inhuman order”. “We will urgently appeal to the competent judicial authority so that this “vendetta” measure, abnormal and illegitimate from every point of view, may be annulled,” it concluded.

The Supreme Court of Cassation has ruled that asylum applicants must be released immediately if their detention has not been validated. On 5 September, the ANSA news agency reported that the country’s highest appeal court had ruled that people could not be detained in repatriation detention centres (CPR) for up to 48 hours – as provided for by the decree law of 28 March, unless their detention had been validated by a court. The ruling related to an appeal by a Senegalese man who had lodged an asylum application on 14 June. The application was rejected by the asylum authority in Rome on 30 June and the Rome Police Commissioner requested the validation of the man’s detention at the Gjadër CPR in Albania on the same day. On 4 July, the Rome Court of Appeal did not validate the request and the man was transferred from Gjadër to a facility in Bari where he was held until 5 July when the head of that city’s police issued a 60-day detention measure on the grounds that he was “socially dangerous” following a conviction for serious crimes. In early September, the Supreme Court judges ruled that the relevant measure in Decree Law No. 37 violated six articles of the Italian constitution and, as such, would have to be examined by the Constitutional Court.

A senior aide to the minister of justice has been put under investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s office in Rome in relation to the Italian government’s decision to release a Libyan general who was subject to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. According to ANSA, Giusy Bartolozzi, who is Chief of Staff to Minister of Justice Carol Nordio, reportedly gave an “unreliable and mendacious” account of the events surrounding the arrest and subsequent release and deportation of Libyan General Osama Almasri Njeem in January. Almasri is suspected of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, torture, rape and sexual violence, in relation to his management of a detention centre in Tripoli.

The National Association of Municipalities (ANCI) has requested an urgent meeting with the government to discuss issues relating to the hosting of asylum applicants. In a press release issued on 29 August, ANCI called for a meeting to be convened at the Ministry of the Interior as soon as possible to discuss the “serious lack of national funding for the reception of minors, the difficulties in managing disembarkations from NGO rescue ships, and [lack of] information on the implementation of the European Migration Pact”. Commenting on the lack of funding for hosting unaccompanied minors specifically, the mayor of the city of Teramo and ANCI delegate on migration, Gianguido D’Alberto, said: “Coverage of the expenses incurred by the municipalities and not yet reimbursed for the years 2023 and 2024 absolutely must be found; We also expect concrete responses for 2025, as it is already clear that the allocation will not be sufficient to compensate the municipalities”.

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