The trial of the NGO ship Iuventa (which also involved Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children) accused of ‘aiding illegal immigration’ ends with a “sentence of no place to proceed”: all defendants acquitted because the fact does not exist

After 7 years and a cost of 3 million euros for justice, the proceedings ended with the acquittal because the fact does not exist, the broader formula, the proceedings against 10 operators of the NGOs Jugend Rettet, Save The Children and Doctors Without Borders accused of aiding and abetting illegal immigration. It was renamed the Iuventa case, after the name of the German NGO’s ship.

A chamber of record for brevity put an end to a case that quickly became political from a judicial one and which cost the humanitarian organizations the infamous accusation of having entered into agreements with Libyan traffickers. The investigation was opened in 2016, when the Trapani Prosecutor’s Office began investigations into the rescue operations at sea organized by the three associations, hypothesizing that they would not have provided assistance to the refugees but would have acted as their "taxi"transshipping them from Libyan ships and then allowing the smugglers to return undisturbed. The investigation was informed by the revelations to the Secret Services, made by the private security of the ship chartered by Save the Children, on alleged irregularities committed by the crew during the rescue activities. The investigators claimed to have ascertained at least three cases in which some crew members had had contact with traffickers and had intervened in operations without the refugees being in real danger. The migrants would have been transferred onto the NGO’s ship escorted by the Libyans and, once the transfer on board the humanitarian boats had taken place, the smugglers would have been sent away. “There are serious indications of guilt,” said the then prosecutor Ambrogio Cartosio.

Item: https://www.corriere.it/cronache/24_aprile_19/migranti-il-caso-della-nave-iuventa-e-la-piu-ampia-inchiesta-sulle-ong-dopo-sette-anni-e-3-milioni-spesi-per-le-indagini-tutti-prosciolti-dec2623c-68bc-4c30-8e7d-b77531bb5xlk.shtml