Rackete is escorted off the ship by police and taken away for questioning, in Lampedusa, Italy. — Reuters photo
LAMPEDUSA, Italy: The Sea-Watch 3 ship carrying dozens of rescued migrants forced its way into the Italian port of Lampedusa after a lengthy standoff and its captain has been arrested, the charity running the boat said Saturday.
Sea-Watch spokesman Ruben Neugebauer told AFP German captain Carola Rackete, 31, had been arrested after manoeuvring the ship into port without permission on Friday night.
Rackete — a hero to some but a ‘pain in the neck’ to Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini — was detained for refusing to obey a military vessel, a crime punishable by between three and 10 years in jail.
Offering no resistance, she was escorted off the vessel without handcuffs and taken away in a car.
The 40 migrants still on board were eventually allowed to disembark early on Saturday and taken to the island’s reception centre, some smiling, others in tears.
The Italian coastguard then took control of the boat, moved it out of the port again and anchored it just off the coast.
The ship docked despite a coastguard boat trying to prevent her from doing so by sailing back and forth between the vessel and the pier, according to the Repubblica daily.
“We put ourselves in the way to prevent (the ship) from entering the port. If we had stayed there, (the vessel) would have destroyed our speedboat,” one of the police officers said in video footage posted on social media.
Residents and activists had gathered on the pier to watch the Sea-Watch 3 dock.
The dreadlocked woman has become a symbol of defiance and a leftwing hero in Italy for challenging Salvini’s “closed-ports” policy.
The NGO’s head, Johannes Bayer, said Sea-Watch was “proud of our captain”.
“She did exactly the right thing. She upheld the law of the sea and brought people to safety,” he tweeted.
Salvini, who heads the far-right League party, welcomed the arrest of the captain of the Dutch-flagged vessel.
“Mission accomplished,” he tweeted. “Law-breaking captain arrested. Pirate ship seized, maximum fine for foreign NGO.”
Salvini has seen his popularity inch steadily upwards on his hardline anti-immigrant platform.
Italian Prime Minster Giuseppe Conte, speaking on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Osaka, Japan, said: “I don’t want to take the place of the judiciary… But the laws exist, whether we like it or not.”
Prosecutors in Sicily have launched a probe into Rackete on suspicion of aiding illegal immigration.
The captain, however, was unrepentant.
After announcing she would be investigated, “the prosecution… notified us that they will not help to bring the rescued off the ship,” Rackete had said in a video statement on Twitter.
“I have decided to enter the harbour, which is free at night, on my own,” she added. — AFP