The Italian president grants a partial pardon to a Libyan citizen and reduces his prison sentence in a case involving the deaths of migrants in 2015.

Rome, December 23, 2025 (LANA) – The Italian news agency Nova reported that President Sergio Mattarella granted a partial pardon to Alaa Faraj Abdel Karim Hamad, a Libyan citizen sentenced to 30 years in prison in connection with the 2015 Ferragosto massacre, in which 49 migrants suffocated inside the hold of a ship that had departed from the Libyan coast.

Under the decree, signed with the approval of the Minister of Justice, the remaining sentence was reduced by 11 years and four months, to 19 years, without leading to the immediate release of the convicted man.

According to the agency, the partial pardon allows for the gradual utilization of benefits guaranteed by Italian law within prisons, such as parole and alternative measures, based on good behavior and mitigating circumstances.

Claudia Gazzini, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, explained in an interview with Nova News Agency that "it's not a release, but a reduction of the sentence," noting that the practical effect could be an additional period of service in a comprehensive rehabilitation program.

The case dates back to August 2015, when Alaa Faraj, then 19 years old, left Libya for Europe on a fishing boat carrying approximately 390 people. During the voyage, dozens of migrants, mostly from Bangladesh and sub-Saharan Africa, died from asphyxiation due to engine fumes and lack of oxygen inside the boat's hold. After the Italian Navy intercepted the vessel, 49 bodies were found while the survivors were being transferred.

Nova News Agency reported that Alaa Faraj and other young Libyan men were later convicted after initially being heard as witnesses, despite repeated objections from defense teams and civil society organizations, who questioned the roles attributed to them. The agency also noted that the organization Sea-Watch considered the charges to be based on weak evidence and racial profiling.

During his years of detention, Alaa Faraj pursued his studies and wrote a series of letters published in a book titled "Why I Was a Boy," which, according to the agency, contributed to the renewed calls for clemency in recent years, supported by academic and civil society groups.

The partial pardon does not extend to the other defendants in the same case. However, Gazzini, speaking to Nova News Agency, suggested that the decision could set an indirect legal precedent that might influence the assessment of the conditions and entitlements of other prisoners within Italian prisons, given their continued insistence on their innocence and their efforts to have the case reopened.

The agency pointed out that the case intersects politically and diplomatically with the prisoner transfer agreement between Italy and Libya, signed in Palermo in 2023 and subsequently ratified by the Italian Parliament. It considered the partial pardon an initial political and humanitarian signal for reopening the debate on the proportionality of punishments and the management of migration issues in the Mediterranean.

...(LANA)...