ROME • The sea captain who rammed a police boat while bringing 40 rescued migrants to an Italian port she’d been warned to stay out of must be freed from house arrest, a judge ruled Tuesday in a decision that angered the Italian government minister who had declared the defiant mariner an outlaw.

Carola Rackete, 31, was arrested after she docked the rescue ship of German nonprofit group Sea-Watch at Italy’s tiny Lampedusa island early Saturday, 17 days after taking the migrant passengers aboard off Libya.

Rackete was “doing her duty saving lives,” Judge Alessandra Vella concluded in denying prosecutors’ request to keep the German captain under house arrest, Italian state broadcaster RAI reported Tuesday night.

Italy’s anti-migrant interior minister, Matteo Salvini, banned ships conducting humanitarian rescue missions from Italian waters and ports, contending they boats encourage human trafficking.

Italian port authorities had repeatedly denied Rackete’s request to enter the port.

After deciding her passengers could remain at sea no longer, she steered into the Lampedusa port without authorization.

Salvini expressed vexation over the court’s decision on social media.

Speaking on Facebook live, he said it “goes against Italy and the law” and described the Italian people as “good, yes, fools, no.”

“Ignoring the law and ramming a motorboat of border police officers aren’t enough motives to go to jail,” he tweeted with sarcasm.

Sea-Watch 3 captain Carola Rackete is seen on board the vessel at sea in the Mediterranean, just off the coasts of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, Thursday, June 27, 2019. The captain of the humanitarian rescue ship says that Italian law enforcement officials have told them that a resolution is near for 42 migrants rescued at sea that Italy’s populist government has so far refused to allow to disembark. (ANSA/Matteo Guidelli via AP)

Matteo Guidelli