first victory for aid workers accused of “espionage”

The verdict was greeted with cheers and applause. After four years of grotesque proceedings against 24 aid workers based on the island of Lesbos, Greek justice on Friday canceled the proceedings for “espionage” brought against them. The facts date back to 2018, at the peak of the arrival of migrants on the Greek island, when more than 40 NGOs came to their aid and while the Greek government did everything to discourage them.

More than 40 NGOs present on the island of Lesbos

It took serious international mobilization, particularly from the UN and the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to achieve this result. The court of Mytilene, capital of the Greek island, took this decision due to procedural flaws, such as the lack of translation of the indictment for foreign defendants. But the other charges, money laundering, human trafficking, participation in a criminal organization and fraud are under investigation and will be judged later.

However, the problem still remains. “The law must change. In the current state of things, we can do nothing other than apply it, ”explained a judge on condition of anonymity at the start of the trial at the start of the week. This Greek law (4 251- article 30) of 2014, concocted in the midst of the migration crisis, provides, among other things, that any migrant accused of having driven a refugee boat faces a minimum sentence of ten years in prison, even if it is proved that he is not a smuggler, even if he is a refugee himself, that he saved lives and that he was not paid by the other passengers to make the crossing. This law also provides that he receives fifteen years’ imprisonment for anyone who dies during the crossing and eight years for each passenger transported and also criminalizes the NGOs that come to their aid.

“Real pranks”

Also, some are accused of human trafficking for having guided their boat overloaded with asylum seekers when the Turkish smuggler had abandoned them in the open sea. Humanitarian workers have been accused of espionage for having scrutinized the Aegean Sea, in order to direct the drifting canoes, or to help illegal immigrants enter Greece and to have given them blankets and water as soon as they arrived on the island.

For Amnesty International, these trials are “real farces”. Wies De Graeve, the Amnesty observer sent to Lesbos, speaks of a trial which confirms “the European trend on migration issues. In Greece, he confides to La Croix, individuals and NGOs are criminalized to dissuade them from showing solidarity with migrants. We have studied the charges against the defendants and have come to the conclusion that they do not hold water. »

Asylum seekers cleared

The European Union report, published in June 2021, does not say otherwise. He speaks of “the biggest case of criminalization of solidarity in Europe”. In fact, since the start of this procedure in 2018, most migrant rescue NGOs have ceased their activities at sea in Greece, while shipwrecks are increasing. Left-wing MEP Stelios Kouloglou, who has launched an awareness campaign in the European Parliament, welcomes the verdict, but for him the hardest part remains: “There are 2,000 migrants imprisoned in Greece, under this law of 2014. This is the second largest category of incarcerated people. The average penalty incurred is 45 years in prison, the average duration of the trial 28 minutes, and the defendant’s defense time: three minutes. They don’t have a lawyer, they go like sheep to the slaughterhouse. »

During these trials, asylum seekers were cleared. Thus, Hanad Abdi Mohamad, a 29-year-old Somali who saved 31 people from drowning, just saw his 142-year prison sentence reduced. He will be released in a month, but on his criminal record will remain the charge “trafficking in human beings”. According to his lawyer, Alexandre Georgoulis, “this will not change and he will have great difficulty obtaining asylum anywhere”.

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