Giorgia Meloni is under investigation for Almasri’s release. The Prime Minister herself announced it in a video published on social media. Nordio, Piantedosi and Mantovano are investigated together with her.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, January 28, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni published a video on social networks in which she announced that she was under investigation for the release of the Libyan jailer Njeem Osama Almasri Habish, better known as Almasri. In the video, Meloni said he had received “a warning” from the public prosecutor of Rome, Francesco Lo Voi, for the crimes of aiding and embezzlement.

Who is Amasri?

Almasri is the head of the Libyan judicial police, responsible for the Mitiga prison in Tripoli, where migrants who try to leave from the Libyan coast towards other countries such as Italy are often held. As various non-governmental and humanitarian organizations have documented, migrants are subjected to inhumane treatment and arbitrary detention in Libyan prisons. On January 18, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an international arrest warrant for Almasri, accused, among other things, of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The following day, Almasri was arrested by Digos in Turin, pending the proceedings relating to his surrender to the ICC.

On January 21, however, Almasri was released by the Italian authorities and taken to Libya. In the release order, the Court of Appeal of Rome, responsible for the arrest warrants of the ICC, declared “the arrest was irregular as it was not preceded by discussions with the Minister of Justice, responsible for relations with the Court international criminal law”. In practice, the reason for Almasri’s release would have been the failure of the Ministry of Justice to give the attorney general at the Court of Appeal of Rome the green light for his arrest.

According to the law, the Minister of Justice is responsible for relations between the Italian State and the International Criminal Court and for following up on requests from the court itself.

Why didn’t the Ministry of Justice give the green light to the arrest?

It is unclear why the Ministry of Justice did not give the green light to the arrest. On January 22, the International Criminal Court announced that it “is seeking, and has yet to obtain, verification from the authorities on the measures that would have been adopted” in the case of the Libyan jailer. Libya is one of the states with which Italian governments have been maintaining relations for some time to try to block the arrival of migrants in our country.

On this last point, it is worth specifying that the Prime Minister and her colleagues did not receive a notice of investigation or communication of registration in the register of suspects, which is a necessary act. Warranty information, better known as “warranty notice”, is the instrument with which a suspect becomes aware of a criminal proceeding against him when the public prosecutor carries out an investigation to which the defender has the right to attend. The communication of registration in the register of suspects is simply information sent as a duty to the subjects affected by news of a crime concerning them, as in the case of Meloni and the other ministers. As the National Association of Magistrates (ANM) has specified, the communication sent to the Prime Minister and her colleagues is a necessary, not discretionary, act. This is provided for by the Constitutional Law of 1989, which establishes the rules for judicial proceedings against government officials. According to this rule, upon receiving the complaint against a minister, the public prosecutor must send the documents to the court of ministers within fifteen days and communicate the news to the person directly involved, i.e. the government representative, without carrying out investigations.

Giorgia Meloni in the video published on January 28 on her social profiles – Source: Facebook