Sea-Watch 3 captain Carola Rackete answers reporters' question during a videoconference from her vessel at sea in the Mediterranean, just off the coas...
Sea-Watch 3 captain Carola Rackete answers reporters' question during a videoconference from her vessel at sea in the Mediterranean, just off the coasts of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, Friday, June 28, 2019. The German captain of the Sea-Watch 3 ship that is blocked off Lampedusa with 42 rescued migrants aboard said, in a videoconference with the Foreign Press in Italy Association Friday, the migrants are exhausted and not letting them land is like keeping them in prison. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)
Sea-Watch 3 captain Carola Rackete answers reporters' question during a videoconference from her vessel at sea in the Mediterranean, just off the coas...
Sea-Watch 3 captain Carola Rackete answers reporters' question during a videoconference from her vessel at sea in the Mediterranean, just off the coasts of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, Friday, June 28, 2019. The German captain of the Sea-Watch 3 ship that is blocked off Lampedusa with 42 rescued migrants aboard said, in a videoconference with the Foreign Press in Italy Association Friday, the migrants are exhausted and not letting them land is like keeping them in prison. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)
MILAN (AP) — The 31-year-old German captain with tied-back dreadlocks and a steady voice has enraged Italy's interior minister as she defies authorities in defense of dozens of migrants rescued at sea.
Carola Rackete pushed her defiance to the extreme Saturday, winding up arrested after ramming the police boat while docking at a tiny Italian island.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini thundered that she was a "criminal" who committed an "act of war" against Italy.
But the gutsy captain of German humanitarian ship Sea-Watch 3 got her way: 40 migrants safely set foot in Italy, more than two weeks after her vessel's crew plucked them from an unseaworthy boat launched by Libya-based human traffickers.
