People drown: the human cost of policing

On 4 May 2017, the weather was fair offshore Libya, and people were taking the opportunity to brave the crossing.

From first light, we worked side by side with three other rescue vessels, from MOAS, MSF and Sea-Watch, pulling hundreds of people from unseaworthy boats: rubber dinghies, wooden hulls, small and large. Under MRCC coordination, we had taken on board as many as our deck could hold. As always, the civilian fleet organised the rescue work on the ground itself: coordinating teams, sharing resources, covering each other.

As the day drew to a close, we awaited instructions from Rome on which larger vessel to transfer our passengers to, MOAS or MSF, ships with the capacity to carry them safely to Italy. The MRCC had other plans. After instructing us to distribute almost all of the rescued onto various ships, it insisted we keep five people on board and bring them to Lampedusa ourselves, a full day's journey away.

We protested. The larger ships had the capacity and offered to take the five, all of them unaccompanied minors, separated from family and fellow travellers. We protested again as night gave way to dawn and new boats appeared on the horizon, carrying hundreds more. We were urgently needed in the rescue zone. The MRCC responded with pressure and threatened harsh consequences against the crew and our organisation in Berlin.

We refused and demanded alternatives. The MRCC, unable to openly reject our demands in full view of so many people in distress, resorted to a shabby manoeuvre: it offered to have the five minors transferred to an Italian navy vessel at a rendezvous point 90 nautical miles north, halfway to Lampedusa. We sailed to the coordinates. No ship was there.

Under mounting pressure, with no alternatives left, Berlin relented and instructed the crew to follow the orders and continue to Lampedusa. We had no choice. That evening, we brought the five minors safely ashore, and were held overnight: the crew interrogated, the ship inspected, before we were permitted to leave the following morning.

The MRCC's demand was not a coordination error, nor a misunderstanding of our role as volunteers. It took months before we learned the real motives behind the orders: while the ship lay in the port of Lampedusa and the crew was being interrogated, police investigators secretly went on board and bugged the bridge. The recordings from that bug, together with the wiretaps of countless phones, make up a large portion of the police dossier against us.

The prosecution's files reveal how little solid suspicion, and even less creativity, it took to obtain authorisation for the surveillance.

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Chapter 2 – Request for audio surveillance aboard the "IUVENTA"

From the statements made by the aforementioned GALLO, MONTANINO and RICCI, and from the content of the conversations cited above, it emerged that the "IUVENTA" allegedly conducted its search and rescue service in an anomalous manner, on some occasions venturing close to the Libyan coast.

A further peculiarity highlighted above is that, following rescue operations, the "IUVENTA" had never entered Italian territorial waters with migrants on board before 6 May, always carrying out transfers in international waters and, in adverse weather conditions, preferring to approach the Tunisian coast, without ever setting course for EU territorial waters.

In light of the above, on 4 May the undersigned offices requested and obtained from this judicial authority a warrant for audio surveillance of the conversations that would take place aboard the aforementioned motor vessel, in order to gather potential sources of evidence, not otherwise obtainable, regarding its conduct during migrant search and rescue operations.In this regard, it is noted that on 5 May, despite repeated requests by IMRCC to proceed to the port of Lampedusa (AG) to disembark 5 minor migrants, the captain of the IUVENTA attempted by every means to defy these instructions, making it necessary to involve the Dutch coast guard, which was duly contacted by IMRCC.

On that occasion, both the crew of the "IUVENTA" and the staff of the NGO "Jugend Rettet" displayed a closed attitude towards the police authorities, providing vague information regarding the rescue of the migrants, in particular with reference to the aforementioned minors.

We returned to the same stretch of water 48 hours after we had left it. What awaited us was dystopian. Three vessels of the civilian fleet, two offshore supply ships and a Frontex vessel, all at capacity. Scattered across the water, rubber dinghies and a large wooden boat drifted without assistance, simply because there was no space left. We took on over 400 people from the wooden boat alone.

According to reports from the NGO vessels on scene, at least five dinghies had vanished into the darkness of that night. No one had the capacity to reach them, let alone provide enough life jackets for bare survival. Five dinghies: at least 500 people whose lives ended that night.

Those left behind did not drown by accident. They drowned by order.