Former Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini will stand trial on kidnapping charges, a judge ruled on Saturday.
Mr Salvini is facing the charges over his decision to refuse to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019, keeping the people on board at sea for days.
Judge Lorenzo Iannelli set a trial date in September during a hearing in the Palermo bunker courtroom in Sicily.
Mr Salvini, who attended the hearing, insisted that he was only doing his job and his duty by refusing entry to the Open Arms rescue ship and the 147 people it had saved in the Mediterranean Sea.
“I'm going on trial for this, for having defended my country?" he tweeted after the decision.
“I'll go with my head held high, also in your name."
He said he had had to make "the most difficult phone calls" to his children after the hearing to inform them of the decision, adding that his "conscience was clear" and he was not "afraid" for having carried out his "duty".
Palermo prosecutors accused Mr Salvini of dereliction of duty and kidnapping for having kept the migrants at sea off the Italian island of Lampedusa for days in August 2019.
During the standoff, some migrants threw themselves overboard in desperation as the captain pleaded for a safe, close port.
Eventually after a 19-day ordeal, the remaining 83 migrants still on board were allowed to disembark in Lampedusa.
Mr Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party, maintained a hard line on migration as interior minister during the first government of Premier Giuseppe Conte, from 2018-2019.
While demanding European Union nations do more to take in migrants arriving in Italy, Mr Salvini argued that humanitarian rescue ships were only encouraging Libyan-based human traffickers.
He claimed that his policy of refusing them permission to enter port actually saved lives by discouraging the risky trips across the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe.
His lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, said she was certain the court would eventually determine that there was no kidnapping.
“There was no limitation on their freedom," she said after the indictment was handed down.
“The ship had the possibility of going anywhere. There was just a prohibition of going into port. But it had 100,000 options."
Open Arms welcomed the decision to put Mr Salvini on trial and confirmed it had registered as a civil party in the case, along with some survivors of the rescue, the city of Barcelona where the ship is based, and other humanitarian groups.
Open Arms founder Oscar Camps said the decision to prosecute Mr Salvini for actions taken when he was interior minister was “historic" and showed that European political leaders can be held accountable for failing to respect the human rights of migrants.
“This trial is a reminder to Europe and the world that there are principles of individual responsibility in politics," he said.
The decision to prosecute shows “it's possible to identify the responsibility of the protagonists of this tragedy at sea".
Mr Salvini is also under investigation for a similar migrant standoff involving the Italian coast guard ship Gregoretti that he refused to let dock in the summer of 2019.
The prosecutor in that case in Catania, Sicily, recommended last week that Mr Salvini not be put on trial, arguing that he was only carrying out government policy when he kept 116 migrants at sea for five days.
Italy and other southern EU nations such as Spain and Greece have long argued that other members of the 27-nation bloc must do more to help them cope with an influx of migrants.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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