Ambrogio Cartosio

Ambrogio Cartosio has been the Public Prosecutor of Trapani from 2011 to 2017. Since 2017, several Public Prosecutors have opened investigations against NGOs engaged in sea rescue operations. The charges have ranged from aiding illegal immigration to crimes related to waste disposal. The Prosecutors that have led legal proceedings against private entities involved in search and rescue operations. To date, all investigations have been dropped. However, these investigations have contributed to a climate of mistrust towards the work of NGOs and have helped legitimize the operations of the Libyan authorities who, since 2017, have been identified as the sole authority delegated to conduct rescues in the Central Mediterranean.

Although it is not possible to establish the direct link between the Prosecutors who conducted these investigations and the aforementioned political institutions that have been involved in the externalization of the Italian borders, these prosecutors have evidently taken a political side in their judicial work, which has been repeatedly challenged as a political act outside the judicial mandate of the Prosecutors of the Republic. (See Italy, “Criminalization of NGOs”).