After two hours in the courtroom, the preliminary hearing was postponed to November 20, when Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Maio, and Senator Danilo Toninelli, will also be heard.
Prosecutors in the Sicilian city of Catania accuse the far-right League leader of abusing his powers to block people from disembarking from the Gregoretti coastguard boat under his so-called “closed ports” policy.
Salvini faces up to 15 years in jail for aggravated kidnap and could also be barred from holding public office for six years, preventing him from running for prime minister at the next election in 2023.
The 47-year-old called on his supporters to descend on the courtroom in Catania to protest against what he has described as a plot against him.
“I’ll head to the court with peace of mind and a clear conscience to have saved lives and defended my country,” Salvini told the press last week.
“I will plead guilty to defending Italy and the Italians.”
Fellow far-right leader Giorgia Meloni, head of the Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has faced several trials himself, have shown their support for Salvini.
As well as having his judgment questioned by people in his own party, Salvini is embroiled in a series of legal wrangles, the majority connected to his tenure as a hardline interior minister.
One of his first moves when he took office in June 2018 was to declare Italian ports closed to ships engaged in rescuing people fleeing Libya by boat.
This policy triggered some 25 standoffs between rescue vessels and Italian authorities, some of which became the focus of criminal investigations.
The case that went before the court on Saturday relates to a group of migrants who were rescued in the Mediterranean in two separate operations on June 25, 2019, after five days at sea.
There were 15 unaccompanied children among them.
They were transferred to the Gregoretti on July 26, then held on the overcrowded patrol vessel under a fierce summer sun – despite a scabies outbreak and a suspected case of tuberculosis.
The unaccompanied children were allowed off on July 29, following pressure from Catania’s youth court.
The remaining migrants disembarked July 31, after Salvini said a deal had been brokered with other EU countries to take them.
A few months later, the Catania prosecutor’s office placed Salvini under investigation and in February this year, the Italian senate formally authorised criminal proceedings.
Salvini’s defence team insists the decision to hold the people on the ship was not his alone, but reached collectively within the government.
Asked recently whether he would prevent the disembarkation if he could go back in time, Salvini replied: ‘‘It is not that I would do it again – I am going to do it again.”
While no date has yet been set, there is a second hearing awaiting Salvini for the illegal detention of 107 migrants on board of the Open Arms rescue ship, in August 2019.
