There are no witnesses and the evidentiary hearing before the preliminary hearing judge ends with nothing. The procedure was intended to crystallize the testimonies of two migrants against Maysoon Majidi, the Kurdish artist and activist arrested by the Crotone Finance Police on charges of being the smuggler of the boat that landed on the Gabella beach on 31 December with 77 migrants on board. The woman has been in Castrovillari prison since January where she could remain until the outcome of the trial. According to various civil rights movements, you have unjust accusations and detention against, they say, a woman who had to flee from Iran where she was seen as an opponent of the regime. During the hearing, a sit-in by the Maysoon Libera committee and the 26 February network took place in front of the court to demand the release of the Kurdish activist. At the opening of the hearing, the preliminary hearing judge Elisa Marchetto had to take note of a communication from the judicial police regarding the unavailability of the witness who, at the time of disembarkation, had made statements in which she indicated Maysoon Majidi as a smuggler. Upon leaving the Court, the woman’s defender, the lawyer Giancarlo Liberati, recognizing that “the judge behaved correctly” showed how the witness, Asan Hosenzadi, declared unavailable, could be negotiated by telephone. The same lawyer made a video call to which the man answered. “According to the naval team of the Crotone Financial Police – said the lawyer – the witness is untraceable. He is in an immigration center, Camp Tegel in Berlin and it takes nothing to contact him. You just saw it. Strange that the German police, when requested by the Italian police, did not find him.” His presence, according to the lawyer, “is decisive because he explained to us that he never accused Maysoon” as the Turkish co-defendant would have done “who accused himself of being the skipper and declared from the first moment that this girl had nothing to do with it.” Liberati announced the request for house arrest for the activist: “In prison she lost 14 kilos. I have announced to the preliminary hearing judge that he will ask for the replacement of the precautionary measure even if the prosecutor has already announced a contrary opinion. I will try to present a very detailed request to enable the prosecutor to further evaluate the existence of serious indications which in truth I did not see from the beginning. We have already identified an association that has expressed its willingness to welcome Maysoon and we can take all the necessary precautions. The girl has no interest in running away because it would be like confirming her guilt. She wants to stay in Italy, she wants to be acquitted in a fair trial with the evidence in her favor and not flee.”
