Italian Senate lifts immunity of defiant Salvini over migrant boat

Italian senators voted on Feb. 12 to lift immunity for far-right leader Matteo Salvini, opening the way for a potentially career-ending trial over accusations that he illegally detained migrants at sea last year.

The decision gives magistrates in Sicily the go-ahead to press charges over his decision to keep more than 100 migrants blocked aboard a coastguard ship for six days last July as he waited for other European Union states to agree to take them in.

Salvini, who was serving as interior minister at the time, could eventually face up to 15 years in jail if found guilty at the end of Italy's tortuous legal process. Conviction could also bar him from political office, dashing his ambitions to lead a future government.

The upper house Senate voted 152-76 in favour of removing the legal protection that had shielded him as a former cabinet minister. The ruling coalition of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, the centre-left Democratic Party and other small centrist and leftist groups supported lifting his immunity.

Salvini's opposition allies voted against, while his own League party boycotted the vote.

Aware that the vote looked certain to go against him, Salvini sought to make political capital out of the case, saying he had only been defending national interests.

"I have chosen against my own interests ... to go to court and rely on the impartiality of the judiciary," he said.

The byzantine nature of Italy's legal system means Salvini faces no immediate risk, but the case could prove a distraction as other investigations start to pile up at his door.

Earlier this month another tribunal in Sicily recommended that Salvini stand trial over a separate migrant stand-off dating from last August, with...