The preliminary hearing on 13 October lasted approximately four hours.

The hearing began late due to technical issues with the portable individual equipment for simultaneous translation that had been purchased by the Court to guarantee Iuventa defendants’ rights to adequate interpretation (see report from 14 April 2023). When it became clear that the Court could not resolve these issues, the judge ordered consecutive interpretation (German/Italian) be carried out instead by the two interpreters present in the courtroom.

During the hearing, Iuventa defendants had the chance for the first time in the preliminary hearing stage of the proceedings to deliver statements responding to the charges against them by presenting their recollection of the rescue operations and events implicated in the indictment. Their statements also included observations of their experience in the investigation and preliminary proceedings to date. The two Iuventa defendants present in the courtroom, Sascha Girke and Dariush Beigui, delivered their statements (dichiarazioni spontanee) orally, with consecutive interpretation. Meanwhile, a statement by Iuventa defendant Kathrin Schmidt was submitted in writing, to be translated into Italian by the Court’s translator.  

Iuventa defendant Sascha Girke began by introducing himself as a professional paramedic from Germany and detailed his motivation to participate as a volunteer in civil sea rescue missions in the Mediterranean Sea. He emphasized that he had never received any payment to carry out such missions, only reimbursement of expenses for food and accommodation. At this point, the judge interrupted Girke’s statement to introduce and formally appoint an English-Italian interpreter, patched into the courtroom via an online connection, to fulfil functions related to the translation of wiretapped communications from MSF’s rescue ship Vos Prudence discussed in the previous hearing (see report from 6 October 2023). Before Girke resumed, two of three members of the prosecution team present in the courtroom, including the lead prosecutor, got up and left the room. They did not return for the duration of the hearing.

When the judge allowed Girke to resume his statement, he described his role and participation in several missions of the rescue ship Iuventa. He specifically recollected the mission of 2–12 September 2016, in which he had served as mission leader. He provided a detailed recounting of the sea rescue operations carried out on 10 September 2016, which, according to the prosecution, was one of the alleged incidents of collusion with Libyan traffickers to facilitate the unauthorized entry of foreigners to Italy. Girke highlighted that all rescue operations on this day had been coordinated by the Italian MRCC in Rome and carried out in collaboration with other NGO-operated rescue ships, as well as an Irish Navy patrol vessel, a Spanish Airforce plane and an Italian Navy helicopter. Girke noted that the accusations made by the prosecution were based only on the testimony of three security service personnel who were aboard one of the other NGO rescue ships. Given the number of actors involved, as well as the hectic pace and long duration of the multiple, coordinated rescue operations carried out on the day, Girke questioned the quality of the prosecution’s investigation for its failure to verify or corroborate the incriminating testimonies of the security personnel by gathering all available materials by the other actors involved, which he considers to be of critical exculpatory value.

Girke stated: “It is completely incomprehensible to me that the statements by the three authorities that were present on the scene (two military units in the air and one military unit in immediate proximity to the Iuventa during the period in question) have not been used to verify the testimonies of the [security] personnel. Indeed, these statements are not even part of the investigation files. After seven years.”

After Girke concluded his statement, Iuventa defendant Dariush Beigui was given the floor to deliver his statement. He too began by briefly introducing himself, as a German inland waterway skipper from Hamburg, and also described his motivation for joining civil sea rescue missions in the Mediterranean Sea. He noted that he boarded the Iuventa for the first time in 2016 and, since then, has participated in numerous rescue missions at sea. He also emphasized that he has never received money for such work, only meals during missions.

In his statement, Beigui provided a detailed account of the sea rescue operations carried out on 18 June 2017, when he was captain of the Iuventa, which included two alleged incidents of collusion with Libyan smugglers listed in the indictment. Beigui’s statement refuted the prosecution’s version of events, citing not only his own recollection of events, but also additional analysis of the incident conducted by Forensic Architecture (FA), based on Iuventa’s full archival material of the incident (including photographs, videos, and all recorded communications with the Italian MRCC and other vessels present in the area), as well as accounts of journalists who had been on board other NGO rescue ships on scene. The FA analysis, available online, confirms the version of facts presented by the Iuventa defendants and concludes that there is no evidence of collusion between the Iuventa crew and the alleged smugglers. FA’s reconstruction of events highlights that the accusations made by the prosecution are based on decontextualized factual elements that have been embedded in a narrative completely at odds with the sequence of events that emerged from the material evidence. Iuventa’s defense considers the FA reconstruction to be crucial exculpatory evidence.

In the last part, Beigui criticized the proceedings before the Trapani Court for failures that he sees as undermining his right to defense and the presumption of innocence. In particular, he reiterated the fact that the entire case file (nearly 30,000 pages) was never translated into his native language (German), but only a 600-page summary. He also reiterated that he would have liked to exercise his right to voluntarily submit to questioning in order to have a chance to give his side of the story, but on three occasions, the court did not assign him a sufficiently qualified interpreter to complete the task. He said: “I don’t think a judge should give you the feeling that he has already decided against you just because he has read the indictment.” The judge interrupted Beigui in the middle of his statement to stress that the Court had not prevented his questioning, despite some problems with the prosecutor’s office failing to find a qualified translator. The judge also told the defendant that he may or may not agree with the decisions (ordinanze) issued by the judge in the proceedings to date, but stressed that all of these decisions (ordinanze) have provided legal reasoning and been translated into his native language.

The Iuventa defendants’ statements can be read in full here.

The next preliminary hearing is scheduled to take place on 27 October 2023.