On 14 December 2023, the judge announced the postponement of all four hearings previously scheduled for 14, 15, 16 and 18 December. The hearing lasted approximately one and a half hours, during which the parties agreed on dates for hearings in January and February 2024. 

In addition to the prosecution team, defense lawyers, and two interpreters, a new lawyer was present from the State Legal Service of Palermo (Avvocatura dello Stato), assigned to represent the Ministry of the Interior in its capacity as a civil party in the proceedings (see report from 25 February 2023). No defendants were physically present in the courtroom. 

As there was no need for interpretation due to the lack of defendants present, the judge appointed the interpreters to instead translate the transcripts he had requested in the previous hearing of communications between the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (IMRCC) and the ship Aquarius during the March 2017 search and rescue incident under examination, as well as the transcripts of communications between the IMRCC and all ships involved in the area during the September 2016 incident under examination.  

In the previous hearing, the judge had granted the prosecution’s request to have their four main witnesses examined. All four witnesses were private security officers employed by the shipping company Vroon, which owned the search and rescue ship Vos Prudence chartered by MSF at the time of the incidents in the indictment. During the 14 December hearing, however, the judge struck two of the four witnesses from the list, explaining that after having read the statements they gave during the investigative phase, he had decided that their examination was not relevant for his determination of whether to send the case to trial. After all parties discussed the availability of the defendants to participate in the hearings in person, the judge fixed the dates for the examination of the two remaining witnesses for the prosecution for 9 and 10 February 2024. 

The judge also reserved the possibility to hold hearings on 12, 19 and 26 January, should other relevant matters be ready to examine on those dates. He announced that he had asked the port authority to share the tracks of all the ships involved in the events under examination. The port authority is currently retrieving this information and, as they believe the ships’ tracking was updated every 10 minutes, they think it would be impractical to present the data via paper printouts. They are currently exploring options for digitally presenting the material in court, hopefully in January 2024. In this context, one of the defense lawyers asked the judge in what capacity the port authority would be heard at the hearing, whether as a witness or as an “expert witness” (perito). The judge said he did not think he would assign an expert witness, but he had not yet decided. Either way, he clarified that all parties would have the opportunity to ask questions to the port authority and possibly choose some freeze-frames to keep on record, to “crystallize” the relevant interactions between the vessels. 

The next preliminary hearing is scheduled to take place on 12 January 2024.