From Reuters in Rome via The Guardian:
An Italian judge has acquitted two men accused of people-smuggling and murder, saying they had been forced at gunpoint by Libyan traffickers to drive a rubber boat packed with migrants last year.
The judge in the Sicilian city of Palermo on Wednesday ordered that Jammeh Sulieman and Dampha Bakary, from Senegal and Gambia respectively, be released from prison, according to a copy of the ruling.
Hundreds of similar cases are pending in Italy, and the ruling may have set a “historic” precedent, said one of the defence lawyers in the case.
An Italian judge has acquitted two men accused of people-smuggling and murder, saying they had been forced at gunpoint by Libyan traffickers to drive a rubber boat packed with migrants last year.
The judge in the Sicilian city of Palermo on Wednesday ordered that Jammeh Sulieman and Dampha Bakary, from Senegal and Gambia respectively, be released from prison, according to a copy of the ruling.
Hundreds of similar cases are pending in Italy, and the ruling may have set a “historic” precedent, said one of the defence lawyers in the case.