A court in Italy has found former crew members of the migrant rescue vessel Aquarius not guilty of illegally trafficking waste — a case that had been hanging over the accused for eight years. The charity SOS Mediterranee announced the acquittals on Friday.
The Aquarius was seized back in 2018 following a year-long investigation into how waste was being disposed of during rescue missions in the central Mediterranean Sea.
Prosecutors based in Catania, Sicily, had argued that items such as clothing left behind by rescued migrants, food scraps, and medical waste should have been treated as infectious sanitary waste subject to strict handling requirements.
Those prosecutors accused crew members and humanitarian aid workers of disposing of the waste improperly to cut costs, claiming the practice put public health at risk in Italy during the period between 2017 and 2018.
Approximately 24 individuals were placed under investigation when the case was first launched.
At the time, SOS Mediterranee was working alongside the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, also known as MSF. SOS Mediterranee consistently maintained that no rules were broken, and on Friday it celebrated the acquittals — which were formally issued earlier in the week — stating that all waste had been managed in full compliance with applicable regulations.
In a separate statement, MSF expressed hope that the ruling would bode well for other staff members facing a similar trial in Catania. That separate case involves comparable charges tied to another rescue vessel, the Vos Prudence.
