- author, nick beake
- role, europe correspondent
- Reporter Kalamata, Southern Greece
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A Greek court has thrown out the trial of nine Egyptian men accused of causing the largest migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean in a decade.
A judge in the southern port city of Kalamata ruled that he did not have jurisdiction to hear the case because the ship sank in international waters.
More than 600 people are feared to have drowned when the overcrowded fishing boat Adriana sank en route from Libya to Europe in June last year.
He could have been sentenced to life in prison if convicted of the stowaway and boat sinking charges. When the judge’s decision to dismiss the case became clear, protesters cheered outside the courtroom.
The indictment, seen by the BBC, charges the defendants on evidence, which at least six survivors had previously denied, that the coast guard pressured them to capsize their boat and frame the Egyptians. It was shown that
Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said they had strong concerns about the integrity of Greece’s investigation and evidence, and questioned whether the defendants would receive a fair trial.
The Greek coast guard has always denied doing anything that caused the disaster, and authorities deny all claims of wrongdoing or cover-up. The claim is being heard in the Greek Naval Tribunal.
Up to 500 people believed to be missing at sea
The nine Egyptian defendants, aged between 20 and 41, went on trial on Tuesday.
All the men were on board the fishing vessel Adriana, which sank in international waters on June 14 last year, in a Greek-designated rescue zone in one of the Mediterranean’s deepest waters.
The boat is estimated to have been carrying up to 750 migrants when it left the Libyan port of Tobruk almost a week ago.
Eighty-two bodies were recovered, but the United Nations believes a further 500 people may have died, including 100 women and children in the ship’s hold.
The court said the men could not be tried for setting up a criminal organization and causing the shipwreck because the incident occurred far from Greece’s coast.
As a result, he was declared not guilty of further charges of illegally entering Greece and ruled that he was not a smuggler.
Prosecutors had earlier accepted the defense’s argument that there was no legal basis to try the men because the ship sank within Greece’s demarcated rescue zone but outside Greek territorial waters.
Greek coastguards had been tracking the ship for at least seven hours before the sinking, but no rescue attempt was subsequently made as the ship was safely sailing on a “steady route” towards Italy at a “constant speed”. It was announced that there was no. She said there was no danger to passengers.
When the BBC reported on the Greek Prime Minister’s allegations in November last year, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said an investigation was underway but that the smugglers were to blame.
“Our Coast Guard has saved tens of thousands of people at sea, and we should be grateful for their work,” Mitsotakis said.
The situation of the boat at the center of the prosecution case
Greek prosecutors have accused nine Egyptians of captaining an extremely overcrowded ship and causing a catastrophe at obvious risk to life, according to an indictment obtained by the BBC. It became clear that it did.
“The fishing vessels were old, poorly maintained and unsuitable for transporting so many people, especially over long distances in the absence of life jackets,” the report said. It’s dark.
Prosecutors argued that each defendant took turns operating the ship and that all were aware that severe overcrowding, both on deck and in the holds, was affecting stability.
The indictment also alleges that nine Egyptian men were part of a smuggling ring that charged between $4,000 and $8,000 (£3,100 and £6,300) per passenger for each seat on the boat.
Egyptian defendants claim they were entrapped
The prosecution’s charges were based on interviews conducted by the Coast Guard itself with nine other survivors in the days after the accident.
Evidence from the remaining 95 survivors does not appear to have been presented to the court.
Two Syrian men who called Ahmad and Mousaab to protect their identities told the BBC that the coastguard had instructed them to remain silent about other factors in the disaster and instead blame the nine men. .
“They were imprisoned and falsely accused by the Greek authorities of trying to cover up their crimes,” Mousaab said.
In separate interviews in Athens, four other survivors said they believed the Egyptians were paying passengers like them and had been ensnared.
But other survivors are said to have testified that they had indeed been abused by some of the defendants, known as the “Pylos Nine” after the Greek town of Pylos, near the site of the sinking.
Charges against the Greek coast guard are not mentioned in the indictment.
Weeks after the accident, several survivors claimed that a last attempt by a Greek patrol boat to tow the migrant boat was in fact unsuccessful, causing it to capsize.
The allegation was not mentioned anywhere in the court’s indictment, although the United Nations had previously said the claim merited an independent investigation.
Speaking to the BBC last year, Ahmad and Mousaab claimed they were silenced and threatened by Greek authorities after they suggested the patrol boat was the cause of the sinking.
“They attached a rope from the left side and everyone moved to the right side of the boat to regain balance,” Musaab said. “The Greek ship started moving very quickly and our boat flipped over. They continued to drag it for quite a distance.”
Cell phone evidence not examined
No footage from inside the Adriana, let alone the moment it sank, has ever been released to the public.
The Coast Guard said its own sophisticated cameras were not recording.
Some survivors said they occasionally took videos on board the boat, but that the coast guard confiscated their phones shortly after they were rescued.
The phones then appeared to be lost and found nearly a month later in a bag on a Coast Guard boat at the site of the wreck.
The defense had asked for some mobile phones to be tested as they could be used as evidence, but an investigating judge ruled last year that the tests were futile, according to court documents obtained by the BBC. If a migrant were to fall into the sea, the “self-evident consequence” would be that all cell phones would be irreparably damaged.
“Seawater entered the confiscated mobile phone, making it impossible to extract any type of digital data stored on it. [attempting to extract data] “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
Greek military investigation underway
A separate admiralty tribunal investigation into the Coast Guard’s potential liability began in the weeks after the disaster, but is still in its preliminary stages.
Human rights groups believe the case should be concluded before a criminal trial against the Egyptian defendants.
Christos Dimopoulos, director of Amnesty International Greece, said: “Criminal courts will likely have incomplete information to assess the defendant’s guilt. Trials may be based on incomplete or questionable evidence. There are real risks to what is being done.”
The Greek government has vowed to hold smugglers accountable and crack down on illegal immigration, saying justice will be served.
Meanwhile, Judith Sunderland, deputy director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch, said: “Credible and meaningful accountability for one of the worst shipwrecks in the Mediterranean includes holding Greek authorities responsible.” There is a need.”