The American actor Richard Gere will testify on October 6 in the trial against the Italian politician Matteo Salvini, accused of having blocked in 2019, when he was Minister of the Interior, the disembarkation of immigrants saved by the oenagé boat Open Arms in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Court of Palermo (island of Sicily), which instructs the process, called the actor to testify on Friday, as requested in the previous hearing on June 9.
Salvini, current Vice-President of the Government, is on trial in the Sicilian capital for preventing for about 20 days, in August 2019, the disembarkation of 163 immigrants rescued by Open Arms in the Mediterranean, as part of the “closed ports” policy .
Richard Gere, 73 years old, was a witness to the situation that was lived on the rescue ship, since on August 9 of that year he brought groceries to the ship, an intervention remembered by the founder of the oenagé, Óscar Fields, in the previous view.
“He called me to ask what he could do, I told him to meet me in Fiumicino and that we go together to Lampedusa”, explained Camps then, and related that the actor “took charge of buying fruit and vegetables and of renting a boat to carry what had been bought”.
“People had been at sea for too many days with infectious diseases, scabies; the lack of water did not help in this situation and the doctor could no longer… There was a lot of tension on board, everything was missing, we had to make many trips to bring water and medicine and the physical and psychological situation was not it was easy”, recalled Camps.
The situation was unblocked thanks to the intervention of the Administrative Court of Lazio, which allowed the disembarkation on the island of Lampedusa due to the situation on board after twenty days of blockade.
Matteo Salvini, accused of the crimes of kidnapping people and abuse of power, alleged, for his part, that the humanitarian boat “was assisted in every way” and denounced that the objective of the oenagé was to force Italy to accept immigrants.
“The oenagé had indignantly rejected aid and the ports of Malta and Spain at the cost of increasing navigation days. The goal was just to disembark in Italy,” he said in a note.
