The Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio denied that Rome had been “blackmailed” over the case of the Sicilian fishermen detained in Benghazi.
“We are working day and night to bring them back home”, he said in a televised interview. He noted that the negotiations “are taking time.”
On the possibility of releasing them before the end of the year, he replied, “I will not be honest if I give dates. This is what I am always saying to the families of the fishermen when I meet them. What I can say is that Italy always brings its citizens home. During this year, we have brought back seven people who were kidnapped.”
On 1 September, the Libyan Navy arrested eighteen Italian fishermen for illegally entering Libyan waters. In 2015, four young Libyans in Sicily were sentenced by the magistrates of Catania to 30 years in prison. They were accused of organising a crossing from Libya, in which 49 migrants died. Libya is seeking a prisoner swap with the Italian government. Rome has claimed it refused to be “blackmailed” over this issue.