Andrea Tassara

Andrea Tassara has been the Chief of Office III of the 3rd Department of the General Command – Plans and Operations (Piani e Operazioni) since 2018. The 3rd Department deals with the operational part of the work of the Coast Guard, it coordinates the Search and Rescue operations in the Central Mediterranean and is responsible for the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (IMRCC). Andrea Tassara is the Chief of Office III – Operation Room/Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (I.M.R.C.C). The MRCC initially opposed the Interior Ministry’s efforts to create a Code of Conduct for rescue NGOs in 2016 and continued to arrange the transfer of refugees in between NGO vessels, which the code forbade, and did so “in open defiance of Italy’s interior ministry.”  Under the leadership of Andrea Tassara, the MRCC’s stance began to shift and started to be more aligned with the agenda of the Ministry of Interior. (See Italy)

The suspect has been the Chief of Office III of the 3rd Department of the General Command – Plans and Operations (Piani e Operazioni) since 2018. The 3rd Department deals with the operational part of the work of the Coast Guard, it coordinates the Search and Rescue operations in the Central Mediterranean and is responsible for the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (IMRCC). Andrea Tassara is the Chief of Office III – Operation Room/Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (I.M.R.C.C). Office III is the most relevant to the policies discussed in this Communication, as the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (IMRCC) receives the requests of boat in distress and it is responsible for coordinating the emergency rescue operations by identifying which vessel should conduct the search and rescue operation and by then indicating the place of safety. For what concerns search and rescue operations in the Central Mediterranean, the IMRCC has started facilitating rescue operations performed by Libyan authorities and since 2018 has prevented vessels that had conducted a rescue operation outside Italian waters from disembarking in an Italian port. Andrea Tassara has been indicated as being very close to the political line of the Ministry of Interior. In fact, since Andrea Tassara was appointed Chief of Office III and of the IMRCC, the Italian Coast Guard has carried out several coordination of rescue operations that led to de facto pull-backs to Libya and has impeded disembarkation in Italian ports. (See Italy, "The Italian Coast Guard and the IMRCC")

Since 2017, the MRCC Rome has often coordinated maritime rescues in such a way that only the Libyan Coast Guard would intercept vessels in distress, even when Italian Navy, NGO, or merchant vessels were in the immediate vicinity, thus ensuring that refugees would be forcibly back to the Libya (and often to internment in de facto concentration camps). In the aggregate, these interventions amount to a systematic policy of unlawful refoulement by proxy. (See Italy, "Coordination of “rescue” operations and refoulement by proxy")