A mistake for four foreigners and a rule to change

The valuable information site NaplesMonitor reported and accurately reconstructed a judicial affair that had little relevance in the media system.

On May 20, the last act was held, before the Court of Cassation, of a process that began between 2015 and ended with theannulment without postponement of the sentences against G. Afewerki, G. Abraha, M. Hintsa and GE Kidane, four Eritrean citizens accused of aiding and abetting illegal immigration.
These were initially considered members of an alleged Roman cell belonging to a larger transnational organization dedicated to the trafficking of human beings, which would be responsible for guiding the transit of migrants from the places of arrival to the countries of destination, up to the northern Europe.

The four were found guilty in the first and second degree, but the charge of criminal association aimed at illegal immigration fell after the head of this hypothetical organization was declared innocent on appeal.

However, the accusation of aiding illegal immigration, motivated by the purchase of bus tickets from Sicily to Rome, by small loans, by the hospitality offered in lodgings or in occupied buildings, remained standing.

The proceedings, already in the first instance, had proved that the accused had not benefited from these actions, but, nevertheless, the four Eritreans had to spend a year and a half in prison. This is because the Consolidated Law on Immigration, in art. 12, indicates that certain conducts are punishable even when, even in the absence of an economic advantage, it is possible “to make a profit, even indirectly”. What that “indirect profit” could possibly be has never been ascertained, but this did not prevent first and second degree sentences.

A few weeks earlier, four activists from the association Baobab Experience they were tried for that same crime of aiding and abetting, for having helped, in October 2016, some citizens of Sudan and Chad, who wanted to reach the Red Cross center in Ventimiglia. Here too it was the purchase of bus tickets and the fact of having accompanied the migrants to their destination.

In both cases, according to the judges, “the fact does not exist”. And thank goodness. It remains that the current legislation on immigration lends itself to frankly intolerable abuses, going so far as to penalize behaviors that fall within that elementary availability to help, constituting the very foundation of the social bond and relationship life. What do you expect to change that norm?