Italy's Salvini to Stand Trial for 2019 Migrant Standoff 

ROME - A judge on Saturday ordered former Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to stand trial on kidnapping charges for having refused to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019, keeping the people onboard at sea for days.

Judge Lorenzo Iannelli set September 15 as the trial date during a hearing in the Palermo bunker courtroom in Sicily. Salvini, who attended the hearing, insisted that he was only doing his job and his duty by refusing entry to the Open Arms rescue ship and the 147 people it had saved in the Mediterranean Sea. "I'm going on trial for this, for having defended my country?" he tweeted after the decision. "I'll go with my head held high, also in your name."