“Acquitted”. With this single word spoken by the judge, the court room of Kalamata, in the south of Greece, where the trial of nine Egyptians accused of being involved in one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks took place on Tuesday, May 21 in the Mediterranean, exploded with joy. Applause, cries, tears mixed in the courtroom. The sister of one of the defendants, who came from Germany, hugged her brother and immediately called her parents in Egypt. Walid El Ghurab, who made the special trip from Italy, burst into tears: “ My brother will be able to continue his life. He is only 34 years old, he did not understand why he was in prison after having gone through such an ordeal and having survived a shipwreck where he himself lost a cousin. »
On the night of June 13 to 14, 2023, approximately 47 nautical miles from the town of Pylos, in southern Greece, the trawler Adriana, dilapidated and overloaded with around 750 passengers – Syrians, Egyptians, Palestinians and Pakistanis – sank in international waters but in the Greek search and rescue zone. One hundred and four migrants survived and more than 500 disappeared, making this tragedy one of the worst shipwrecks in recent years in the Mediterranean.
Many questions about the rescue operations carried out by the Greek port police quickly emerged: the Greek emergency services were slow to arrive to help them and the towing of the boat with a rope, by the coast guard, was the cause. of the boat capsizing, according to the testimonies of survivors.
But the day after the sinking, the Greek authorities sought to find the smugglers and present them as those responsible for the accident. A usual procedure in Greece, where the criminalization of exiles is very widespread, according to human rights NGOs. The nine migrants, aged 21 to 37, were prosecuted for “membership of a criminal organization”, for “facilitating the illegal entry of migrants into Greek territory” and for “causing a shipwreck”. They faced life imprisonment.
“This matter will not be easily buried”
But on Tuesday, the Kalamata court acquitted them, ruling that this court did not have jurisdiction to rule, since the shipwreck took place in international waters and the migrants did not intend to go to Greece but in Italy. This last point was confirmed by two Greek coast guards called to the stand. Courts on the island of Rhodes and Crete have already made similar decisions, and defense lawyers have relied on those precedents.
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