On 12 June, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Italy cannot be held liable for the actions of the Libyan Coast Guard, rejecting a case filed by a group of immigrants who were rescued from the Mediterranean Sea after their boat sank in 2017 and taken to the Tajoura detention center in Tripoli, where they were beaten and abused. The court declared the case inadmissible, finding that Italy did not have effective control over the waters off the coast of Tripoli, where the small boat carrying about 150 people sank. The judges found that the captain and crew of the Libyan vessel Ras Jadir acted independently when they responded to the distress signal and that Italian funding and support for the Libyan lifeguard since 2017 does not prove that Italy had taken over Libya’s public authority powers.
