Komotini: 20-year-old asylum seeker sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for driving a car with refugees in Greece
During the journey, A.D. was stopped by the police and arrested for transporting people who had previously entered the country irregurarly. He’s been in prison ever since and has applied for asylum. Luckily, during this time, he was not discouraged but instead took the chance to attend the prison’s school with very good results. This condition, together with his clean criminal records, represent the mitigating circumstances which can grant him an early release from prison. Today, since his lawyer has asked for the prosecutor for a deal, he has been condemned to 4,5 years imprisonment, which given the above mentioned circumstances is likely to be reduced.
A.D.’s case is unfortunately not an isolated one, but paradigmatic of yet another facet of Europe's policy of closing borders and deterrence. As documented by CPT - Aegean Migrant Solidarity, borderline-europe and Deportation Monitoring Aegean, the filing of such charges against migrants arriving in Greece has been systematically used by the Greek state for several years.
The basis for this is Greek legislation which considers anyone who has driven a vehicle carrying people seeking protection across Greek borders to be a smuggler. The arrests that follow these often-unfounded accusations of smuggling are arbitrary, and the trials violate basic standards of fairness. Police officers may accuse the person holding the tiller to steer the boat, or the person communicating with the coastguard to call for help, or simply anyone who speaks English, of being a smuggler.
Without sufficient evidence, they are usually arrested on arrival and held in pre-trial detention for months. When their case finally comes to court, the average trial lasts only 38 minutes in , leading to an average sentence of 44 years.
