04/09/2009 (Agence Europe) - Italy will be continuing with its policy of sending would-be illegal immigrants back to Libya, explained Italy's interior minister, Roberto Maroni, on Monday 31 August 2009. Maroni is reported by the ANSA press agency to have said at a conference in Milan: “The push-back policy works and we will continue to uphold it in the interest of both Italy and the European Union.” According to Maroni, some 1,300 illegal immigrants arrived on Italy's shores between 1 May and 31 August 2009, compared with 14,000 in 2008. ''The press needs to be prudent about reporting these things,'' Maroni said, saying that the last time Italy sent immigrants back, they were in international waters. He denied reports that a group of 75 immigrants denied asylum on Sunday and sent to Libya were in fact Somalis (see EUROPE 9966). (B.C./transl.fl)