A GERMAN migrant rescue charity staged a silent protest outside a prefecture hall in Italy today to demand that the government release its ship three-and-a-half months after it was seized. 

The Italian government impounded the Sea Watch 3, owned by the charity Sea Watch, in June after captain Carola Rackete defied former interior minister Matteo Salvini’s ban from the country’s territorial waters and disembarked 40 refugees in Lampedusa. 

The charity’s campaigns manager Chris Grodotzki told the Star the protest was to remind Agrigento prefect Dario Caputo to do his job.