Mediterranean rescue ship Iuventa ‘worked with Libyan traffickers’, Italy claims
The migrant rescue boat Iuventa has been seized in a Sicilian port as Italian authorities investigate the German NGO Jugend Rette for what they suspect could be aiding clandestine immigration
The Times
By Philip Willan, Rome
4 August 4 2017
The year-long inquiry, triggered by claims that charities were acting as a “taxi service” for illegal migrants from Africa, led to the seizure of a ship belonging to a German organisation over alleged complicity with traffickers.
Investigators said that the crew of the Iuventa avoided Italian ports and openly defied maritime authorities.
In May the ship entered harbour on the island of Lampedusa with a sign that said “F*** IMRCC” on its prow. The Italian Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre supervises rescue ships in the central Mediterranean.
Judge Emanuele Cersosimo ordered the seizure of the boat, operated by Jugend Rettet (Youth to the Rescue), a charity based in Berlin.
Photographs and a report by the judge indicating that the Iuventa crew collaborated with people traffickers were published in Italian newspapers yesterday. Much of the evidence appeared to come from an undercover police officer working on the Vos Hestia, a search-and-rescue ship operated by Save the Children.
In June the officer witnessed a rescue operation by the Iuventa crew in which three wooden boats were lashed together and towed towards Libya, where they were set adrift and collected by traffickers.
One of the boats was seen again a week later carrying more migrants. The judge said that it was against Italian law to fail to render smugglers’ boats unusable.
The officer witnessed meetings between smugglers and crew members in the Iuventa tenders with Libyan coastguard vessels standing by and making no effort to detain or identify the smugglers as they escaped.
“The choice is only comprehensible in the light of a situation of grave collusion between single units of the coastguard and the people traffickers,” the report said.
Evidence of Libyan collusion with smugglers is embarrassing as the Italian navy prepares to begin joint operations with the Libyan coastguard in an effort to interrupt the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean. More than 95,000 refugees have made the dangerous crossing to Italy this year.
Bugs planted by investigators on the Iuventa are understood to have captured conversations in which crew members made clear their reluctance to co-operate with Italian investigators.
A Iuventa team leader named as Katrin said to a colleague: “We won’t supply any photograph in which the people steering the boats could be identified because the police might arrest them.”
Marco Minniti, the Italian interior minister who has spearheaded efforts to enlist the support of Libyan tribal leaders in halting the passage of migrants across their territory, described Jugend Rettet’s behaviour as “humanitarian extremism”.
He said the case demonstrated the need for a code of conduct drawn up by his ministry, which Jugend Rettet and four other groups had refused to sign. He warned that if they did not do so it would be difficult for them to continue.
Maurizio Gasparri, a Forza Italia senator and vocal critic of search-and-rescue charities, said that the Iuventa crew should be arrested and Jugend Rettet and other NGOs “swept out of the Mediterranean”.
Police searched the Iuventa yesterday and seized documents and computers. The boat will be transferred from Lampedusa to the Sicilian port of Trapani, where Judge Cersosimo is based.
Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mediterranean-rescue-ship-worked-with-libyan-traffickers-italy-claims-b3mbpwsvh
