11 bodies of migrants recovered and landed in Lampedusa, Di Leo: “There are regulatory, humanitarian, and constitutional issues about sea rescue”.

Last Updated: June 8, 2024

Migranti, gli 11 cadaveri recuperati e sbarcati a Lampedusa, Di Leo: «Ci sono problemi di ordine normativo, umanitario e costituzionale sul soccorso in mare»

The prosecutor of Agrigento Giovanni Di Leo highlights in a note “the multiple critical issues of regulatory, humanitarian, and constitutional nature on sea rescue” in relation to the latest immigration tragedy that led to the administrative decision to transfer 11 bodies of migrants recovered at sea to the port of Lampedusa, with a transfer in progress from a NGO ship to Coast Guard patrol boats.

“The NGO ship – observes Di Leo – was given, according to what was communicated by the judicial police, Genoa as the port of disembarkation. The Agrigento Prosecutor’s Office, for the crimes committed in international waters, would end up being attributed jurisdiction over the case, in relation to the destination of the bodies recovered in open sea, which as victims of the crime of aiding illegal immigration, would establish the jurisdiction and competence over the case”.

The prosecutor points out, however, that “any investigation into the same case should wait for the arrival in the port of Genoa of all persons involved (crew, rescued persons etc.), and be carried out obviously with a delegation to that judicial authority or to the police forces. Similarly, the Genoa Prosecutor’s Office, if it wanted to assert its jurisdiction over the case, should carry out urgent investigations on the bodies disembarked in Lampedusa, starting them after several days from their transfer ashore, and likely burial”.

Di Leo also highlights that “the island of Lampedusa is not equipped for the storage of such a high number of corpses. Even in this case, therefore, the choice to disembark them in Lampedusa instead of, for example, Porto Empedocle, where the docking of the ship would avoid a transfer at sea, is not understood”.

“The application of criminal law, the investigations provided for by the procedural code as mandatory, the determination of jurisdiction and of criminal competence itself – concludes the Prosecutor – cannot, according to the Constitution, be left to discretionary decisions of the political-administrative Authority, but only to the law itself”.