The Court of Trapani has issued its ruling in the case concerning the rescue carried out by the ship Mare Jonio of Mediterranea Saving Humans on October 16, 2023: the sanctions imposed by the government — a twenty-day administrative detention of the vessel and a fine of over €3,000 — have been definitively annulled. These measures had been applied against Mediterranea on the basis of the so-called Piantedosi Decree Law. The Ministry of the Interior has also been ordered to pay legal costs.

On that occasion, following a may-day-relay received from the civilian observation aircraft SeaBird 2 of Sea-Watch, we intervened to assist a rubber boat in distress in a SAR zone under Libyan control. The rubber boat was reported to have “engine failure, partially deflated and damaged tubes, severe overcrowding on board (including women and children all without personal lifesaving equipments ), and with one person already in the water at risk of drowning”. Thanks to the immediate intervention of our Rescue Team, we were able to embark all 69 shipwrecked persons aboard the Mare Jonio. Most were families from Sudan and South Sudan, including several women and children, among them a newborn. They were disembarked the following day in Trapani.

This was the first case in which the Piantedosi Decree Law was applied to the Mare Jonio, on the grounds that the vessel had not submitted to the “coordination of the Libyan authorities” and had not requested from them “the assignment of a port of disembarkation.”

These grounds have now been deemed entirely illegitimate by the Court of Trapani. The Court recognized that the Mare Jonio had promptly communicated to all authorities its readiness to intervene in the rescue operation. Furthermore, as stated in the ruling, “it is expressly and clearly excluded that Libya — a country that has never ratified the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees — satisfies the criteria to be designated as a place of safety for the purposes of disembarkation following a maritime rescue, in light of the volatile security situation in general and the particular risks to the protection of foreign nationals (including arbitrary and unlawful detention in inadequate conditions in state-run detention centers, as well as reports of serious violations and abuses against asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants by, among others, militias, traffickers, and smugglers).”

The Court therefore found unlawful the request by Italian authorities that our ship refer to and submit to the coordination of the so-called “competent Libyan authorities.” Conversely, it affirmed the full legitimacy of “the conduct of the Master of the Mare Jonio, as there was no arbitrary refusal to comply with instructions issued by the flag authority, but rather a justified departure from them based on the correct exclusion of the possibility of requesting Libyan authorities to designate a port of disembarkation, for the reasons outlined above.”

There have now been numerous rulings by Italian courts systematically dismantling the use of the Piantedosi Decree Law to target, hinder, and obstruct the rescue activities of civil fleet vessels. In the case of our Mare Jonio, this has occurred three times (two proceedings are still ongoing and will be decided later this year), forcing the ship to remain detained for months, preventing it from carrying out rescue operations at sea and imposing significant maintenance costs on us.

This illegitimate and instrumental use of the Piantedosi DecreeLaw is all the more serious in light of the situation in North Africa and the Central Mediterranean: arbitrary detention, deportations, violence, and torture in Libya and Tunisia, and — since the beginning of this year alone — more than 1,600 women, men, and children have lost their lives in the Mediterranean.

The failure of government policies, unfortunately, costs thousands of lives: shipwrecks continue at sea, while the Minister smirks and touts the “success” of reduced landings; women, men, and children die of hypothermia and cold, left adrift for days. The latest United Nations report certifies the criminal nature of the so-called “Libyan institutions,” including the so-called “Libyan coast guard,” with which Italian intelligence services (AISE) “maintain excellent cooperative relations” (as stated by Prefect Caravelli in a hearing before COPASIR). In the shameful Almasri case, Italy has been referred for allowing a dangerous individual wanted for crimes against humanity to escape. The UN is also investigating violations of the arms embargo on Libyan militias by the Italian government, which trains and supplies local gangs .

The morality and ethics of a Minister of the Republic must not be measured by the “Suburra”-style conduct of Roman power circles, of which we see daily evidence, but by the suffering and death, the injustices, and the illegitimacy and illegality of his actions.

PIANTEDOSI MUST RESIGN FOR ALL OF THIS.

After this further confirmation provided by the ruling on the unlawful and illegal detention of the Mare Jonio, we will move forward with even greater determination in civilian sea rescue operations: with the sailing yacht Safira already on mission around Lampedusa, and with the Mediterranea Ship upgrading its onboard medical facilities and rapid-response equipment, soon to return to sea.

We call on all those who practice solidarity, rescue, care, and protection for the most vulnerable — on land and at sea — to continue and to disobey unjust laws enacted through inhumane policies. One day, those in power will also answer before courts for their crimes. Before History, they already are.

MEDITERRANEA Saving Humans

Trapani, 3rd April 2026