The Guardia di Finanza knew the information that there were migrants on that boat from 11.20pm on 25 February 2023. This is confirmed by the annotation of a communication coming from the National Operations Center of the Guardia di Finanza at 11.20pm which had indicated the gulet Summer Love as a “vessel with migrants”. This is what emerged this afternoon during the fourth hearing of the trial on the alleged delays in the rescue of the vessel whose shipwreck in Steccato di Cutro (Crotone) on 26 February 2023 caused 94 deaths – 35 minors – and an unknown number of missing people. Trial in which 4 soldiers from the Financial Police and two from the Coast Guard are accused.
The news comes from an answer that the Carabinieri major, Nicola Roberto Cara, gave to the civil party lawyer, Francesco Verri, during the cross-examination. Cara, shortly before, had concluded the long reconstruction of the investigation she conducted into the rescue operations at Summer Love. The lawyer asked the Army major if he could read what was noted in the register of the Roan of Vibo Valentia and where that message came from. The officer reiterated that it was a “message from 11.20pm written in pen by the theater operators in which Cenop communicated the sighting by Eagle 1 (the Frontex plane, ed.) of a vessel with migrants”.
Answering the other questions, the major then confirmed the coincidence between this note and what was contained in a message sent by lieutenant Antonino Lopresti (defendant) on the Roan OTC WhatsApp group: “Lopresti wrote shortly afterwards ‘it is a vessel with migrants'”. The note, the Carabinieri officer then responded, also coincides with the message that Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Lippolis (accused) sent at 11.33pm to another officer in which he wrote: “I am migrants”.