00:00 Now, nine charges against Egyptian men accused over a 2023 migrant boat disaster off Greece
00:07 have been dropped today. The Greek court said it had no jurisdiction to hear the case as
00:12 the shipwreck happened in international waters. The case concerned the sinking of the Adriana
00:18 fishing trawler on the 14th of June last year when more than 500 people are believed to
00:24 have died.
00:25 Well, let's get the very latest live from Athens on all of this. Natalie Savarikas is
00:29 with me. Natalie, tell us first of all a bit more about why the judge did dismiss this
00:34 case.
00:35 Well, you know, she basically followed the recommendations not only of the defence teams
00:41 but also the prosecutor. They all recommended that Greece did not have the required jurisdiction
00:49 to try this case. Usually in criminal cases what happens is there needs to be the principle
00:56 of nationality or territoriality. Ideally, the victims or the defendants need to be of
01:03 the nationality of the country or that the crime itself occurred in its territory and
01:09 neither were actually present. Now, the presiding judge, Eftihia Kodaradou, interviewed the
01:15 Egyptian men known now as the Pilos Nine because this town was the closest to the shipwreck,
01:23 mostly in their 20s. They all declared their innocence and even wondered why they were
01:27 there. They claimed to be migrants and trying to get to Italy. And she basically agreed
01:37 and that's in her ruling. She acknowledged that there were no Greeks on board. It was
01:43 not under a Greek flag, the trawler itself. And all the documents refer to the vessel
01:49 being 47 nautical miles away. That is outside of Greece's territorial waters, hence dismissing
01:57 the case and freeing the Egyptian men.
02:01 Natalie, what kind of reaction has there been to the dismissing of this trial so far?
02:08 Well, I can tell you that already, I mean, these men were held in pretrial detention
02:15 for 11 months. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch were also condemning their detention
02:24 for a very long time because of various issues. So there were a lot of crowds there gathered,
02:30 jubilating at the verdict, essentially even a march in favor of these refugees and the
02:37 migrants and very much condemning EU policy and of course the illegal pushbacks that they
02:45 claim to have been taking place over the years against migrants and refugees trying to get
02:52 to the European Union. At the same time, they claim that another investigation into the
02:58 responsibility of the Greek Coast Guard should kind of proceed as well. It's very much in
03:05 its preliminary stage and a lot of reports have surfaced that Greece actually knew of
03:12 this trawler navigating close to its seas well in advance, that the Coast Guard could
03:19 have saved these people and actually could be responsible for the capsizing of the ship
03:25 itself. And of course the most important bit is also the procedural bit on how the testimonies
03:32 were collected and reports have come to surface that the Coast Guard were present when these
03:38 testimonies were collected and they were being conflicted later when the Coast Guard was
03:43 not present. So a lot at stake. The preliminary investigation needs to continue according
03:49 to the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International into claims of what could the Greek state's
03:57 responsibility be in this Mediterranean tragedy.
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