FALCON POWERS – On the first day of the trial of nine Egyptians who were accused of responsibility for the sinking of a migrant ship in June 2023, which resulted in the death of at least 500 people, the Greek justice system dropped all charges and declared them innocent.
Today, May 21, the Greek judiciary acquitted the nine Egyptians who were accused of being involved in one of the most serious incidents of migrant ship sinkings in the Mediterranean Sea, on the first day of their trial.
The judge of the Kalamata court (in the south of the country) declared his lack of jurisdiction in this case, and the court then “acquitted the nine defendants and dropped all charges.” rights organizations had considered this trial a new example of the “criminalization of migrants” in Greece, and the non-governmental organization “Legal Center in Lesvos” spoke of the “systematic criminalization of migrants in Greece”. When the court’s decision was announced, some of the defendants, aged between 21 and 37 years old and who had been in pre-trial detention for 11 months, burst into joy and began kissing their loved ones, while applause was heard in the courtroom.
The Greek authorities are now expected to make a decision on their asylum applications, and they must be transferred to a migrant camp, according to their lawyers.
All the defendants had pleaded not guilty at the start of the trial, and their lawyers said they were just “scapegoats” to hide the real responsibilities.
One of them said, “I was in the hospital, I barely survived the sinking and I found myself accused (…) I don’t know the reason.”
Another one claimed in court that he paid the smugglers 150,000 Egyptian pounds (about 2,950 euros) to make the risky trip to Italy.
More than 500 migrants drowned
On June 14, 2023, the ship Adriana, a fishing vessel carrying more than 750 migrants, sank in international waters off the coast of Greece, resulting in the deaths of at least 500 people, while only 104 migrants survived and 82 bodies were recovered.
The next day, the migrants identified nine Egyptians who were on board the boat as the smugglers responsible for the crossing, and they were arrested and imprisoned. Based on the charges against them, which were migrant smuggling, participation in the sinking of a ship, and membership in a criminal organization, these “alleged smugglers” could have been sentenced to hundreds of years in prison, as under the Greek law of 2014, every smuggler is sentenced to 10 years in prison for each migrant on board the boat.
