In a private chat, an Italian prosecutor and his jurist associate admitted that Salvini had "done nothing wrong" as interior minister when he refused to allow illegal migrants to disembark on Italian shores. However, they agreed that attacks against the Lega chief must continue, the Italian weekly La Verita reported on Thursday. The prosecutor of Viterbo even questioned the legal foundations of the investigations launched against Salvini by prosecutors in Sicily.

„I m sorry, but I don t really see anything wrong with what Salvini did. There were attempts of illegal entry to Italy and he, as interior minister, intervened to prevent these. I don t see what this has to do with the prosecutor of Agrigento,” Viterbo prosecutor Paolo Auriemma wrote in a message he exchanged with a jurist associate on WhatsApp. One of his chat partners, Luca Palamara  – an attorney at the Italian Unicost organisation (Unity for the Constitution)  – replied almost instantly that „He is right, but he (Salvini) must be attacked”, according to the transcript obtained by the weekly.         

A sustained attack on the former interior minister over illegal migration can provoke a „dangerous boomerang effect” among Italian prosecutors and jurists, because most Italians think that Salvini was right, the online edition of Il Giornale points out. In the chat, Auriemma admitted that Salvini had „done very well to stop migrants” and voiced his doubts over the legal grounds for the investigation. „Our situation is indefensible. Unjustifiable,” the prosecutor wrote on WhatsApp.

Two legal procedures have been launched against Matteo Salvini, initiated by prosecutors in Agrigento and Catania, Sicily. In one of the proceedings, the Lega party chief is being prosecuted because in 2018, as Italy s interior minister, he closed the Italian ports to NGO ships carrying illegal migrants picked up at sea. The other proceeding, launched in February, was initiated because the ship of Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms was refused docking permission last summer and had to remain at sea off the coast of Lampedusa for 19 days, with 164 migrants on board.

Commenting on these cases in February, Salvini said that Italian authorities „are doing everything they can to stop me and to frighten you. I promise I ll never give up!” In a video message, he said Italy „should be liberated from the republic of prosecutors and judges,” adding that „we are all in God s hands, judges are not the ones to decide about our lives”.