Chaos and anger reigned on Tuesday at the trial of 24 aid workers accused of “espionage”. This trial, which takes place on the Greek island of Lesbos, is presented in a report by the European Parliament as “the biggest case of criminalization of solidarity in Europe”.
The defendants, who worked for an NGO helping migrants landing in Lesbos from the neighboring Turkish coasts, face “up to twenty-five years in prison” for all the charges, estimates Amnesty International. Among them: Syrian refugee Sarah Mardini, who along with her Olympic swimmer sister inspired a fiction broadcast on Netflix (Swimmers retraces their journey between Syria and Germany).
Lawsuits launched by Greek justice more than four years ago
Started in November 2021, the hearings in the court of Mytilene, capital of Lesbos, had already been adjourned from the first day due to procedural disputes. This Tuesday, they were adjourned until Friday after a first interruption in the morning due to the absence of one of the defendants and his lawyer.
The President of the Court specified on Tuesday that only the charges of “espionage” against these humanitarian workers would be examined, while the prosecutions for the crimes of “money laundering”, “migrant smuggling” and of “fraud” will be examined later, when the investigation is completed.
This chaotic hearing has aroused great dissatisfaction among the defendants and human rights NGOs as the proceedings were launched by the Greek courts more than four years ago. The defendants’ lawyers demanded on Tuesday that the Court drop the charges in this first part because of procedural flaws such as the lack of translations of court documents or the failure to send documents to certain defendants so that they appear in court. court.
“The lawyers (for the defense) have provided irrefutable arguments demonstrating why the way in which this trial is unfolding is unacceptable”, assured the German of Irish origin Sean Binder, one of the main defendants, who claimed the application of the “rule of law”. “I hope that she (the President of the Court) will drop these unfounded charges as also requested by Amnesty International”, added the European deputy, the Irish Grace O’Sullivan, present in Lesbos.
“This trial has a political objective”
“All charges against us whether for espionage or money laundering do not stand. This trial has a political objective,” added another accused, the Dutchman Pieter Wittenberg. For Human Rights Watch (HWR), the prosecution was initiated on the basis of police reports containing factual errors “including claims that some of the defendants participated in rescue operations on dates when they were not even in Greece”.
Sarah Mardini, a Syrian refugee in Berlin since 2015, was not present at the hearing. In August 2018 when she was arrested, the young woman was working as a volunteer for the NGO ERCI on this Greek island which saw hundreds of thousands of refugees, especially Syrians, flocking in dramatic conditions in 2015 and 2016.
Sarah Mardini spent three months in prison in Greece before being able to return to Berlin. She had not been able to go to the opening of the trial due to a ban on entering Greece. In an interview with the German daily Tagesspiegel at the end of 2021, the young woman, who dropped out of studies at a Berlin university and indicated that she suffered from psychological disorders, had confided her deep malaise due to her legal troubles: “I want to get my life back (from before). For the past three years, I haven’t had a life (…) I exist through my body. But by nothing else at the moment. »
It should be noted that faced with the proliferation of legal proceedings against them, NGOs rescuing migrants at sea have almost all ceased their operations in Greece, a country accused of carrying out illegal refoulement of migrants at its maritime and land borders towards Turkey.