Italy's far-right leader Salvini to face trial
Italy's Senate has voted to permit prosecutors to place far-right leader Matteo Salvini unproved over charges of holding migrants stumped .
Mr Salvini, who previously served as Italy's interior minister, is accused of illegally keeping people on a ship off Sicily for days in August 2019.
Some 116 migrants remained aboard the Gregoretti for on the brink of every week .
On Wednesday, a majority of senators voted for the trial of the anti-immigration League leader to travel ahead.
Mr Salvini has repeatedly said he wants to travel to court. He told the chamber he wanted "to tell the world" that his migration policies "saved tens of thousands of lives."
"I am absolutely calm and pleased with what I even have done. And I'll roll in the hay again as soon as i buy back to government," he said later.
Senators from his League party left the chamber instead of participate in Wednesday's vote.
Under Italian law, ministers have parliamentary immunity for actions taken while they were in office. But a committee voted last month to strip Mr Salvini of his immunity - leaving the ultimate decision within the hands of the Senate on Wednesday.
The upper house Senate voted 152-76 in favour of lifting the immunity.
After the tally was announced, Mr Salvini compared himself to US President Donald Trump, who was impeached in December and accused opponents of undermining his electoral success through the courts.
"I, like Trump? He features a few more billions and a couple of more years, but it is a bad little habit of the left, going around within the world, to undertake to win by judicial means," he wrote on Twitter.
If successfully prosecuted at trial, Mr Salvini could confront to fifteen years in jail.
What is Mr Salvini accused of?
For years, some in Italy have complained that the country has taken during a sizable amount of migrants fleeing across the Mediterranean, and has involved other EU nations to require their share.
Mr Salvini especially took a tough stance on migrant boats while he was in office, implementing a closed ports policy.
On 25 July 2019, Italian coastguard ship the Gregoretti picked up about 140 migrants trying to visit Italy from Libya.
While the Gregoretti allowed several people off the ship for medical attention, some 116 people remained on board for days while Mr Salvini demanded other EU countries take them in.
The decision drew an instantaneous backlash. Prosecutors opened an investigation into conditions aboard after reports that migrants only had one toilet between them.
After the Catholic Church and variety of states agreed to worry for those on board, during a deal which then EU commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos helped to broker, Mr Salvini eventually consented to allow them to dock on 31 July.
The League leader insists the choice to stay the migrants offshore had the support of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and therefore the remainder of the govt .
But prosecutors believe he acted alone, ignoring repeated requests from Mr Conte to release them.
Italy's Populist Five Star Movement - at the time in coalition with the League - had backed Mr Salvini in previous cases, like when 140 migrants on board the Diciotti vessel weren't allowed to embark in Sicily for 6 days within the summer of 2018.
But the party says that within the case of the Gregoretti he acted alone.
Later in February Mr Salvini also faces losing his immunity over another migrant case. he's accused of keeping the Open Arms migrant vessel offshore for days in August last year.
At the time, Prime Minister Conte called Mr Salvini "obsessed" with keeping migrants out of Italy.
