The captain of the MV Lifeline, which was allowed to dock in Malta on Wednesday, could be facing imprisonment, said Neil Falzon, director of the Aditus Foundation, when contacted by The Malta Independent on Sunday yesterday.

Captain Claus-Peter Reisch will be arraigned in court tomorrow morning on charges relating to improper ship registration, Falzon confirmed.

The MV Lifeline was allowed to enter Malta on Wednesday evening with 234 immigrants onboard after eight European Union member states, later joined by Norway, agreed to ‘share’ the immigrants. The vessel had been stranded between Malta and Libya for six days; one migrant was airlifted by Armed Forces of Malta personnel for medical reasons some days ago.

Both Italy and Malta had accused Reisch of disobeying instructions when he refused to take the immigrants back to Libya. The NGO has since argued that doing so would have jeopardised the safety of the immigrants onboard, as most had been imprisoned or tortured in Libya.

The NGO’s co-founder Axel Steier stated on Wednesday that they “always respect international law” and that they have documents, both on the ship and at their offices in Germany, to prove that the claims of the Dutch government in relation to their registration are false.

The Lifeline has since been impounded by Maltese authorities and it is expected that the ship will remain in the custody of the authorities until the necessary investigations are completed, Falzon told this newsroom yesterday.

Since the entry of the Lifeline, another NGO vessel called Open Arms has been refused entry to Maltese and Italian ports – much like the Lifeline had been. In this case, Italy’s outspoken Home Minister Matteo Salvini claimed that the ship was closer to Malta than it was to Italy; a claim which was refuted by Malta’s Home Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia, who published a map on Twitter which shows that the ship is 20 nautical miles closer to Lampedusa than it is to Malta.

The news that the captain of the Lifeline could be facing imprisonment adds yet another new facet to this story, and creates a new dynamic in a Mediterranean migration issue, which risks becoming an issue that will characterise the coming summer months.