Italian prosecutors secretly recorded human rights lawyers

Exclusive: hundreds of conversations with clients were wiretapped in cases relating to migrant rescue boats

Prosecutors in Italy have secretly recorded hundreds of conversations between human rights lawyers and their clients in cases related to allegations that NGOs operating rescue boats that saved thousands from drowning in the Mediterranean were complicit in people smuggling.

In a joint investigation with the Italian public broadcaster Rai News and the newspaper Domani, the Guardian has seen documents from prosecutors in Trapani, Sicily, detailing private conversations between human rights lawyers and their clients, including a priest, and with journalists in which confidential information was discussed regarding ongoing trials, private sources and legal defence strategies in upcoming hearings.