The hijacking by migrants of a rescue ship is "an act of piracy and delinquency on the high seas," Italy's hardline interior minister and deputy premier Matteo Salvini said on Wednesday.
"We are talking about the hijacking of a ship a few miles off Tripoli which was forced to head towards Malta or Lampedusa," Salvini stated.
Two African migrants last July tried to force the captain of an Italian merchant ship who had picked them up in international waters to turn away from the inbound Libyan coastguard.
The 67 rescued migrants aboard the oil rig supply vessel were eventually transferred to an Italian coastguard ship and local prosecutors in the Sicilian port city of Trapani launched a probe into the alleged hijacking.
