Italian captain given jail term for returning migrants to Libya

Giuseppe Sotgiu found guilty of violating international laws that forbid the forced return of people to countries where they are at risk.

A ship’s captain who handed 101 migrants over to the Libyan coastguard after rescuing them in the Mediterranean Sea has been given a one-year jail term, in the first such case heard by Italy’s courts.

Giuseppe Sotgiu was found guilty of violating international laws that forbid the forced return of people to countries where they are at risk.

He was piloting the Asso 28, an Italian-flagged offshore ship supplying oil platforms off Libya, at the time of the rescue on July 30, 2018. The migrants – including five pregnant women and five minors – were picked up from an unseaworthy dinghy in international waters and handed over to the Libyan coastguard at the port of Tripoli.