Update on Mare jonio / Maersk Etienne case trial.
Somewhere deep in the Sicilian province, the Theatre of the Absurd – with an unintended script that would make Samuel Beckett shudder – continues. The first-instance trial before the Ragusa District Court, which sees six sailors, doctors and activists from Mediterranea Saving Humans in the dock for the Mare Jonio / Maersk Etienne case, has – exactly one year after the start of the proceedings – reached its fourth hearing, which took place on last 20th October.
Picture: Survivors on the Maersk Etienne, Mediterranea
More than six years have passed since the rescue of 27 people, whom the cruel cynicism of European governments (Malta and Denmark foremost among them) had abandoned for 38 interminable days on board the Danish oil tanker, following their shipwreck.
Four years of investigation into “aggravated aiding and abetting of illegal immigration”, involving special teams of police, thousands of hours of telephone wiretaps, surveillance, interrogations, dawn raids on ships, private homes, offices and the association’s premises, and the seizure of telephones and computers, with hundreds of chat logs monitored and transcribed.
Meanwhile, for five years they have served to fuel the smear campaign, the slander and the provocations of the press and right-wing government politicians. To construct the criminalisation of solidarity, which, on the contrary, remains strong and widespread, both for the women, men and children risking their lives at sea, and for the six defendants who face up to 15–25 years in prison if convicted.
In the Theatre of the Absurd, the last two hearings have served to begin – though not yet to conclude – the testimony of the first of the witnesses (and some thirty are expected, called by both the prosecution and the defence), who in 2020 was the Commander of the Italian Coastguard at the Pozzallo Harbour Master’s Office.
And when faced with the lawyers’ questions, he had no choice but to tell the truth: the story of a necessary rescue and the disembarkation – authorised by the Italian authorities – of 27 people who, after years of suffering in Libya, days at risk of losing their lives at sea, and weeks on the deck of an oil tanker, were finally able to disembark in Europe on 13th September 2020.
Curtain down, and we’ll see you in a month’s time in Ragusa.
The Theatre of the Absurd must go on.
Mediterranea Savings Humans
