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Report on the people smuggling trial in Trapani, by Ben Cowles.
Sounds of cheers and popping champagne bottles filled the air outside a busy courthouse in the Sicilian town of Trapani on 19 April. Four former members of the German NGO rescue ship Iuventa – Kathrin Schmidt, Dariush Beigui, Sascha Girke and Uli Tröder – had just been acquitted of people smuggling, a crime punishable with up to 20 years in jail.
‘While I am relieved,’ Schmidt said on the steps outside the court, ‘I am very angry, because this trial should have never taken place’.
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