The inquiry established that Rackete had "acted in compliance with the duty to rescue". In June 2019 Rackete decided to enter Italian territorial waters with migrants aboard the ship without prior authorisation.
The investigating judge of the court of Agrigento in Sicily has shelved the investigation against Carola Rackete, the German captain of rescue vessel Sea-Watch 3, who had been accused of aiding undocumented migration.
"Carola Rackete acted in complaince with the duty to rescue, set forth in the national and international law of the sea," the preliminary investigating judge at the court of Agrigento, Micaela Raimondo, said, shelving the investigation against the captain of rescue vessel Sea-Watch 3
A dutiful captain
In June 2019, the 33-year-old German national, who was defended by lawyers Leonardo Marino and Alessandro Gamberini, had decided to proceed with her plans to move the ship from international waters to the Italian island of Lampedusa and docking it there with 53 migrants on board.
The investigating judge wrote that Carola Rackete "acted in fulfilment of her duty because the port of Tripoli, Libya could not be considered a safe place". The judge cited a report by the UN High Commissioner that emphasised that "thousands of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in Libya are in arbitrary detention and are subjected to torture."
No 'act of war' after all
Rackete had already been definitively acquitted of the charges of resisting a public officer and committing an act violence against a warship in April 2021 already.
Former Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini had accused Rackete of committing "an act of war" when the Sea-Watch 3 collided with a smaller official patrol vessel, which was trying to stop the rescue boat from docking.