Gavin Grey: UK Correspondent on the verdict expected against Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini

A charity boat was bringing 147 migrants that they'd rescued in the Mediterranean to Italy but the Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini refused. 

This has now come to court and Matteo Salvini is accused of kidnap and dereliction of duty over that refusal to allow the the boat to dock, and prosecutors in Sicily have asked judges to sentence him to 6 years in jail.

UK Correspondent Gavin Grey joins the show to talk about this and the Minister who's responsible for tackling corruption in UK financial markets is now alleged to be involved in a massive embezzlement in Bangladesh.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Devin Gray is a UK correspondent. Given a verdict expected
later today in the case against the Italian Deputy Prime
Minister Matteo Savigni.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yes, indeed, run this has been a long time coming
to court. So basically, there was a non governmental, a
charity boat that was bringing one hundred and forty seven
migrants that they'd rescued in the Mediterranean to Italy. But
the Italians, and in particularly the then minister for that

(00:31):
and now Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, refused, said no,
you can't come here. We're not allowing any more boats
and migrants to come to Italy. By that stage, Italy
was pretty much inundated every day with new migrants arriving,
particularly to an island called Lampadusa that one sticks out

(00:51):
into the Mediterranean and was therefore nearer for these boats
to get to anyway. He refused to do it, but
eventually the prosecutor in Sicily ordered the best to be
seized after inspecting it and noting that situation had deteriorated
very seriously on board. After this standoff had kept going
for three weeks with the politician Matrio Salvin he's saying no,

(01:12):
you can't come, and the non governmental ship the open arms,
saying look, we've got one hundred and forty seven migrants here.
They are seriously ill, there's nowhere else for them to go.
And the standoff continued until they were allowed on via
a prosecutor and a legal ruling. Well, it's all come
to court now with Matio Salvin. He accused of kidnapp
and dereliction of duty over that refusal to allow the

(01:35):
ball the boat to dock, and indeed prosecutors and sicily
have asked judges to sentence him to six years in jail. However,
he's a close ally of the Prime Minister, the current
Prime Minister, Giorgio Maloney, and he's saying I was doing
what I had to do to protect Italy. Even Elon
Musk has weighed into it, saying that the courts in

(01:56):
Italy are sort of weighed against, biased, against in favor
of migrants and against the government. So this is going
to be a very very interesting decision though. I think
if it's against Matteo Savini, we can expect an immediate appeal.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, it sounds like they would too. Let's move to
the UK and minister there has been named in an
investigation into an embezzlement case. What can you tell us?

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Yeah, you couldn't make this up. So the minister who's
responsible for tackling corruption in UK financial markets is now
alleged to be involved in a massive embezzlement in Bangladesh.
Sounds odd, doesn't it, But Eulip Sadik, whose family come
from Bangladesh, her family were involved in a tie up

(02:43):
with Russia to build a massive new nuclear power plant,
and that deal was said to be struck in twenty thirteen. However,
Tulip Sidik, the British MP who as I said, is
a labor minister, has now been named into claims that
her family embezzled some eight and a half billion New

(03:04):
Zealand dollars from infrastructure projects in Bangladesh. So it was
claimed that they deliberately overinflated the price, Russia paid the price,
and that the family that Tulipsidik belongs to, which was
also connected to the then Prime minister of the country,
managed to get the massive amount of sort of backplayers

(03:25):
it were, from this deal. Now Tulipsidik and her sources
are saying these are Trump to charges nothing to do
with her completely politically motivated. Her aunt, who was then
leader of Bangladesh has been deposed back in August, and
so they're saying this is all part of payback for that. Meanwhile,
the Prime Minister says he's got full confidence in Tulip Cidik.

(03:45):
She will continue her responsibility as the minister overseeing anti
corruption efforts. But as you can imagine, the opposition party
is having a heyday with.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
This rah you can make home while the sun shines.
The typical water bill in the UK, Gevin is going
to increase twenty five percent on average from April. What's
driving there?

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, well, Ryan, this is a massive at a time
when I think people are once again beginning to feel
slightly better, wages rising above inflation. It looks like there's
going to be this massive rise, and that particularly is
because of a massive amount of work on the infrastructure
that needs doing. The many parts of the system are Victorian,

(04:26):
believe it or not, in the sewer system anyway, and
so different water companies, because the UK has a sort
of regional approach to different water companies in different parts
of the country are charging different amounts. But I did
a quick bit of mass and it looks like the
average rise is twenty five percent. Now, that's going to
be about one hundred and ninety New Zealand dollars a

(04:48):
year extra. Doesn't sound much, does it. But we've got
petrol and fuel prices rising again, electricity prices rising again,
and yeah, lots lots of consumers being to think, when
will these rises ever come to a AP?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, I think we're all wondering the same thing, Gavin,
Thank you for that. Devin Gray, our UK correspondent. For
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