Italy’s senate has formally authorised a criminal case against Matteo Salvini, the far-right leader accused of kidnap last year when, as interior minister, he prevented 131 migrants from disembarking from a coast guard ship.

Last December, the Italian court of ministers in Catania, Sicily, ruled that Salvini should be tried for allegedly depriving the asylum-seekers onboard the Gregoretti coastguard ship of their liberty by refusing to allow them to leave.

But in order to start a trial, magistrates needed the backing of the senate, which, on Wednesday, had to decide whether to allow the criminal case against Salvini to go ahead by lifting his immunity or whether proceedings should be halted. At the end of a heated debate, the majority of the senators voted to lift Salvini’s immunity and authorise the trial. At the end of a heated debate, 152 senators voted to lift Salvini’s immunity and authorise the trial while only 76 voted to block the criminal case.

Before the vote, Salvini said the decision to prevent the migrants from disembarking was made with fellow members of government and, on Twitter he paraphrased a quote by the poet and fascist sympathiser Ezra Pound: “If a man is not willing to fight for his ideas either his ideas are worth nothing, or he is worth nothing.”

Salvini then said in the senate: “I want to go to a courtroom with my head held high. Defending the borders was my duty. I am proud of what I have done, for my children and for the children of this country. Let’s have a judge decide if I’m a criminal or if I was just doing my job.’’

The Pro-Europe party’s leader and member of the senate Emma Bonino said she voted to authorise the criminal case “to give Salvini the opportunity to defend himself during the trial, not from the trial’’.

Senator Gregorio de Falco, a former coastguard commander, said Salvini’s order to prevent migrants from disembarking was “an unnecessary cruelty’’.

The ball is now again in the court of magistrates, who, barring surprises, will set a date for the first hearing, which will be held in Catania. Technically judges still have the power to halt the proceedings altogether.

This is only the most recent legal trouble for Italy’s most powerful populist. Salvini has been placed under investigation five times in less than two years, is the subject of one ongoing trial and has been named in dozens of lawsuits for defamation and instigation of hatred.

It is the first time since the media mogul Silvio Berlusconi – who was convicted in one out of 32 court cases and sentenced to four years in prison – that Italy had a political leader implicated in such a long list of judicial proceedings.

One of Salvini’s first moves since he took office as interior minister in June 2018 was to declare Italian ports closed to rescue ships engaged in saving migrants fleeing Libya. There were subsequently 25 standoffs between rescue vessels and Italian authorities, some of which became the focus of investigations as prosecutors accused Salvini of illegal detention of migrants.

At least three investigations against Salvini concern the alleged kidnapping of asylum-seekers. A criminal case for refusing to allow 131 migrants to disembark from the coastguard ship Ubaldo Diciotti was blocked by the senate in March 2019. At the time, Salvini could count on the support of his coalition partner, the anti-establishment M5S.

Salvini’s legal troubles are not over. On 27 February, the Senate immunity panel will vote again on whether he should face trial for allegedly kidnapping 164 migrants onboard the NGO rescue ship Open Arms.

Salvini seems determined to embrace the cases against him and initially instructed his League party to vote in favour of proceeding with the court case, with the clear intention to use it as a political weapon, before deciding to abstain.