The court of the city of Kalamata (80,000 inhabitants, in the south of Greece) has withdrawn this Tuesday all charges against nine survivors of the sinking of the fishing boat Adriana, accused of being responsible for the death of hundreds of migrants in the Ionian Sea on June 14. The judges have accepted the defense’s request in which they argued that the events occurred outside Greek jurisdiction, in international waters. The defense lawyers argued that the destination of this vessel – which has suffered one of the greatest tragedies in the Mediterranean – was Italy and that the flag of the fishing vessel was not Greek, so Greece does not have the power to judge.
The judges agreed to question several witnesses and the accused, but only with the aim of clarifying whether their intention was to land in Greece, in a port or in its territorial waters. Both the coast guard captain and the accused agreed that the ship had left Libya bound for Italy. The prosecutor, after a break, adhered to what was stated by the defense and recalled that Greek law does not apply in international waters.
The Kalamata court, after a brief deliberation, agreed with the defense. Shouts of joy broke out in the room. The police present, who until then had remained impassive, allowed the relatives to hug the accused – nine Egyptians between 21 and 41 years old -, now officially free of all charges. Some agents even agreed to take photos with family members, who could not contain their tears of emotion.
The day had started with a very tense atmosphere. Dozens of people gathered to show their solidarity with migrants were surrounded by an impressive police force. One of the riot squads charged minutes before the hearing began and arrested three members of the Pame union (Greek acronym for the All Workers’ Militant Front). In the courtroom, the presence of dozens of OPKE agents (equivalent to the Spanish geos) showed that this was not just any trial.
The Prosecutor’s Office accused the nine men of being responsible for the sinking of the Adriana and asked for several life sentences for each of them. The old fishing boat has been lying since June 14, 2023 in the Calypso trench, one of the deepest points in the Mediterranean, along with the bodies of some 600 missing people, of which at least a hundred were women and children.
The dilapidated ship had left Libya five days earlier, ostensibly exceeding its carrying capacity. About 750 people were packed into it: Syrians, Afghans, Egyptians and Pakistanis. Men, women – several pregnant -, teenagers and children who were trapped in the hold of the boat with no possibility of saving themselves. Only 82 bodies were recovered and 104 men were rescued alive. The accused, and now acquitted, were among them.
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All the witnesses were present, including the most important one for both the prosecution and the defense: Captain Miltiadis Zouridakis, who was in command of the LS 920, the coast guard vessel that led the Adriana surveillance operation. Several investigations based on testimonies from survivors pointed to a reckless maneuver by the coast guard who went to the area as the cause of the shipwreck.
During a break in the hearing, Zouridakis assured EL PAÍS that he and his men did everything possible to save the lives of the passengers of the Adriana. When asked if he has read the report from the European Border Agency (Frontex) which states that the objective of the Greek authorities was never to prevent the shipwreck and that they did not mobilize enough resources to save the lives of the migrants, Zouridakis evaded the answer. visibly nervous. “This question puts me in a very uncomfortable position,” he said.
“The word guilty hanging around the neck”
However, shipwreck survivor Houssam Hassan vehemently rejected the coastguard’s efforts to save them. This young Egyptian, present at the trial as a witness, was traveling in the Adriana along with his brother, who was one of the accused. “The coast guard,” he assured this newspaper, “towed us in a dangerous manner until we were shipwrecked after spending 10 hours watching and doing nothing since we sent them the distress call. And to top it all off, they didn’t even throw life jackets into the water as we sank alongside them.” Hassan points to Zouridakis and says: “he has the word guilty hanging around his neck, I only think about the souls of the hundreds of children, women and men who died because of him.”
Hassan didn’t understand why his brother was detained when they had both paid thousands of dollars to board the ship. Adriana. She stated that during this long year with his brother in jail, she thought many times that she would rather be the one detained or both of them dead. “Today [tras la absolución] “It is the first day that I feel alive since the shipwreck,” he said with a very serious face. Wahid Ahmed, brother of another of the detainees, agreed that this year was very hard. “My brother is responsible for a very large family, that’s why he wanted to emigrate.” But Wahid did smile and assured that he is the happiest person in the world.
For her part, Vicky Aggelidou, lawyer for two of the accused, described the court’s decision as brave, accepting the argument put forward by the Defense regarding its lack of jurisdiction. “Now is the time for the Greek courts to find and judge the real culprits: the coast guard,” she concluded. Spiros Galinos, member of the solidarity campaign with the accused Free Pylos 9 expressed himself along the same lines: “Today justice was done for the nine survivors, but not for the hundreds of people who lost their lives in the Adriana. The Hellenic Coast Guard must be held accountable for its actions that day, as well as for its systematic illegal return operations,” he said as he left the courts to conclude with a forceful: “The Ionian thing was a state crime.”
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