iPhone | iPad
Android
Huawei
Musk risks possible EU sanctions in the coming months for allegedly breaking new content rules
KT APPDOWNLOAD
Italy prosecutors accuse six over deadly 2023 migrant shipwreck
The victims perished when their overcrowded boat sank in stormy weather in the early hours of a February just off the region of Calabria
Rescue crew members patrol on a jet-ski on the Mediterranean Sea off a beach coast where dozens of migrants died on February 26 after their boat sank off Italy's southern Calabria region, near Cutro, on March 9, 2023. — AFP file
Italian prosecutors investigating a shipwreck which killed 94 migrants in 2023 accused two members of the coastguard and four police officers on Tuesday of involuntary manslaughter.
Prosecutors in Crotone, a city near the shipwreck off southern Italy, must now ask a judge to rule whether the six stand trial for the tragedy.
The victims, including many children, perished when their overcrowded boat sank in stormy weather in the early hours of a February morning just off the region of Calabria.
The disaster sparked outrage amid allegations authorities did not react quickly enough to reports of an overloaded vessel in the area.
Critics of far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the government's policy of treating migrant boats as a law enforcement issue, rather than a humanitarian one, may have fatally delayed the rescue.
European Union border agency Frontex flagged the vessel to the Italians late in the evening as the weather worsened.
The four financial police officers stand accused of failing to communicate key information to the coastguard, because they did not mention the sailing difficulties they were having due to the rough sea conditions, prosecutors said in a statement on Tuesday.
The two members of the coastguard are accused of "not having acquired the necessary information to have a precise idea" of what the financial police were up to and of having therefore made "an erroneous assessment" of the situation.
The prosecutors said coastguard vessels, designed for rough seas, could have intervened.
The coastguard is supposed to rescue all vessels carrying migrants, as boats run by human traffickers are inevitably dangerously overcrowded and ill-equipped.
There was "obvious negligence in the application of the rules imposed by European and national laws in this type of situation", the prosecutors said.
Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, who oversees the financial police, said on Instagram he "strongly defend(s)" both the financial police and the coastguard, and he was "certain that they have always acted exclusively for the public good".
More news from World
More than 90 per cent of buildings within a so-called buffer zone appeared to have been destroyed or severely damaged, according to the London-based rights group
Netanyahu says that Israel must retain control over the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egypt-Gaza border to prevent weapons smuggling to Hamas
Convention covers human rights aspects of AI
According to the International Meteor Organisation, the one-meter asteroid will be a bright and slow fireball and cause no damage
Saad was studying at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in nearby Gaza City before it was reduced to ruins in the war that has devastated much of the enclave
The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to the Democratic president's efforts to fulfil a campaign pledge and bring debt relief to millions of Americans who turned to federal student loans to fund their costly higher education
The US vice-president will propose tax breaks and cutting red tape for smaller firms if elected in November