Three foreign nationals were acquitted by the Locri court in the southern Italian region of Calabria after about two and a half years in jail.

The three men -- a 36-year-old Iranian national, a 28-year-old Iraqi national, and a 40-year-old Turkish citizen -- had been accused of being smugglers after a boat carrying migrants disembarked in the Locri area.

8 years and 4 months requested for Turkish national

The three men had been arrested at the Roccella Ionica port and afterwards transferred to prison after the disembarking on Sept.1, 2023 of 85 migrants in the port after a rescue operation in the Ionian Sea by the Italian Coast Guard.

Before the Locri court judges had retired to decide, the public prosecutor had requested eight years and four months for the Turkish national and an acquittal for both the Iranian and the Iraqi nationals.

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Charges against the foreign nationals

When the three alleged smugglers were indicted by a judge from the Locri court in July 2024, they had been accused of steering a sailboat measuring around 15 meters from Turkey to the Locri coast in the direction of the Roccella Ionica port, where they had "transported 85 Iranian and Afghan migrants, thus securing there illegal entrance into" Italian territory.

The three men were accused of "taking turns steering the sailboat in the Mediterranean, kept order on the boat, and deprived the migrants of essentials, thus putting their lives and physical safety at risk, making them travel in a vessel not equipped for transporting such a large number of passengers stuffed into the area below the deck, deprived of basic goods and life vests."

The Locri court, however, found them not guilty and acquitted all of them.

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