On 13 January 2023, the judge announced the postponement of the hearing in response to a request from the court-appointed linguistic experts for more time to complete their assessment of the quality of interpretation provided to Iuventa captain and defendant Dariush Beigui during his voluntary interrogation with police.

In line with Beigui’s rights as a defendant, he requested to be voluntarily questioned by the police, with the understanding that the information would then be added to the case file. Such questioning offers the defendant the chance to clarify essential issues and provide additional information, but also carries the potential risk that this information may be used against them in the proceedings. Beigui and his lawyers travelled to Trapani on three separate occasions – 29 October, 12 November and 2 December 2022 – to complete the questioning, but each time the interrogation was halted prematurely due to inadequate Italian-German interpretation. During the hearing on 19 December 2022, the judge ordered an expert review to assess the quality of the interpretation provided to Beigui during the three attempted interrogations, for which he appointed four qualified linguistic experts – two for German, one for English, and one for Italian – to transcribe and assess the interrogation recordings.

Directive 2010/64/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 20, 2010 on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings, requires that suspects have access to adequate interpretation/translation in order to effectively exercise their defense rights and to protect the fairness of the proceedings. Access to adequate interpretation and translation in accordance with basic fair trial rights has been a recurring concern during the preliminary hearings in the case to date.

The next preliminary hearing is scheduled to take place at the Court of Trapani on 10 February 2023.