Sea-Watch captain defends 'disobedience' as backers raise 500,000 eurosThe migrants were allowed to disembark and taken to Lampedusa's reception centreROME - Sea-Watch 3 skipper Carola Rackete, who risks jail time for forcing her way into Italy's Lampedusa port with 40 rescued migrants, has defended her act of "disobedience", saying she was compelled to avert a human tragedy. "It wasn't an act of violence, but only one of disobedience," the German captain told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published Sunday as donations poured in for her legal defence. Rackete's father Ekkehart Rackete told the newspaper group RND that he expected "she will be freed under conditions or bail until the beginning of the trial." The Sea-Watch ship had rescued the migrants off the Libyan coast 17 days prior to the forced landing in Italy. The head of the NGO that operates the ship, Johannes Bayer, said Sea-Watch was "proud of our captain".

Source: Bangkok Post June 30, 2019 15:11 UTC