Italy’s deputy premier, Matteo Salvini, is sounding defiant as he awaits a verdict in Sicily for preventing some 100 migrants from disembarking a rescue boat in 2019 when he was interior minister.

The migrant rescue vessel Sea-Watch 3 was stopped outside the island of Lampedusa by Italian authorities on Wednesday after it defied an order from Rome blocking it from coming ashore. LAMPEDUSA, Italy - Italian police have arrested the captain of a rescue ship carrying dozens of migrants rescued near Libya, after a weeks-long standoff between the vessel and authorities came to a climax off the island of Lampedusa. Carola Rackete, the German captain of Sea-Watch 3, was led off the ship in handcuffs after forcing the vessel into the Italian port without permission in the early hours of Saturday morning. Sea-Watch 3 was one of the first migrant rescue vessels to test new Italy's newest hardline migration laws. Under Salvini, the country closed its ports to migrant rescue vessels in June 2018.