On 16th December the Court of Cassation overturned the sentence of the Court of Appeal of Palermo, which had convicted two shipwrecked sailors, rescued by the tugboat Vos Thalassa, of aiding and abetting illegal immigration, violence and aggravated resistance to an official.

The magistrate of Trapani considered that the act was justified in self-defence, since the two young men, fleeing from the hell of Libya, had acted to save themselves and the other shipwrecked people from the risk of suffering new, very serious violations of their right to life, physical and sexual integrity, in order to protect their right to be taken to a place of safety and to international protection.

On 3 June 2020, the Court of Appeal of Palermo overturned the acquittal and sentenced the two young refugees to three years and six months' imprisonment and a fine of 52,000 euros, considering the first instance judge's approach to be "ideological" on the grounds that "such issues must be properly resolved in the only forum designed for this purpose, namely the political forum of inter-state confrontation".

Following a similar approach, the Supreme Court today reaffirmed that respect for human rights is a matter beyond the competence of public authorities, based on the rules of international law that protect the life and integrity of the person, and declared that "the conduct of resistance to an official by a migrant who, having been rescued on the high seas and invoking the right not to be turned back, resists return to the Libyan State is justified".

We express our great satisfaction with this important judgment which, in line with the approach already taken in the case of Commander Rackete and, before that, in the judgment Hirsi Jamaa and others v. Italy of 23 February 2012, reaffirms that rescue operations at sea which end with the return of shipwrecked persons to Libya constitute a violation of the principle of non-refoulement and violate the right of the rescued persons to be taken to a safe place where their lives are no longer in danger and respect for their fundamental rights is guaranteed.