A verdict is expected on Friday in the case against Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who is accused of kidnapping and dereliction of duty over his refusal to allow a migrant rescue boat to dock in Italy in 2019.
Prosecutors in Sicily asked judges to sentence him to six years in prison.
Salvini, who is the leader of the right-wing League party and a government ally of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has already said he will appeal if found guilty.
He rejected the accusations, repeatedly claiming the judges were “political” and claiming his only fault was wanting to “protect Italy”.
One of the prosecutors, Gerry Ferrara, told the court in September that human rights should take precedence over “the protection of state sovereignty”.
“A person stranded at sea must be rescued and it does not matter whether they are classified as a migrant, a crew member or a passenger,” she said.
An NGO ship called Open Arms was carrying 147 migrants picked up off the Libyan coast when it was prevented from docking on the Italian island of Lampedusa by order of Salvini, who was interior minister at the time.
The Open Arms remained at sea for almost three weeks, and the health of the migrants on board seriously deteriorated.
In the end, the prosecutor in the Sicilian city of Agrigento, Luigi Patronaggio, ordered the ship to be seized as a precaution after inspecting it and noting the “difficult situation on board”.
Salvini claimed that the then government of Giuseppe Conte fully supported him in his mission to “close the ports” of Italy to NGO rescue ships.
Premier Georgia Meloni has stood behind her deputy prime minister, saying she has the “solidarity” of her and her government.
“Turning the duty to protect Italy's borders from illegal immigration into a crime is a very serious precedent,” she posted on X earlier this year.
She has never indicated that she would expect his resignation in the event of a conviction, and Salvini, for his part, has said he will not step down.
In recent months, he has frequently referred to the trial and impending sentencing in social media posts and during public speeches and interviews.
“I want to believe that Italy is a normal country and in a normal country someone who defends the borders is not found guilty,” he told Italian media earlier this week. If that were the case, he said, “it would be terrible news for the country and cause for celebration for people smugglers and enemies of Italy.”
He also claimed that the Italian judicial system was “politicized” and that some magistrates “clearly follow left-wing politics”.
Eli Schlein, leader of the center-left opposition Democratic Party, accused Salvini of “spreading propaganda and fomenting a serious institutional clash”.
The three female prosecutors in the case have been under police protection since September after being harassed online and receiving threats.
Members of Salvini's Lega party have rallied around him and are preparing demonstrations in his support.
On Wednesday, Lega MEPs appeared at a session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Guilty for the defense of Italy” – a slogan Salvini has used in the past.
“A conviction would be an incredibly serious matter,” Lega deputy secretary Andrea Crippa said: “It would be like condemning the entire Italian people, the Italian parliament and the elected government.”
The president of Lombardy's Lega party, Attilio Fontana, said a conviction would be “so unusual, even from a judicial point of view, that I don't even want to think about it”.
Others outside Italy also weighed in on the debate.
“This crazy prosecutor should be the one going to jail for six years,” Elon Musk tweeted, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Salvini, called the trial “disgraceful.”
If found guilty, Salvini said he would appeal the sentence “all the way to the Supreme Court of Cassation”, Italy's highest court.
This process could take months and Salvini's position in the government and parliament will not be affected.