After a two-year wait, five humanitarian volunteers who wanted to help refugees land safely have been acquitted.
Lesbos court acquits 5 foreign NGO people accused of smuggling migrants into Greece.
On Monday, a criminal court on the Greek island of Lesbos acquitted three aid workers from Spain, members of the NGO Proem-Aid, and two Danish volunteers of Arab descent, members of the NGO Team Humanity, who were arrested on 14 January 2016 and accused of attempted people smuggling.
The Greek coast guard had detained the five men “on January 14, 2016 on the territorial water borders between Greece and Turkey as they were trying to help boats with migrants and refugees”, ANA-MPA reads. Later on, the local authorities had accused Manuel Blanco, Julio Latorre, and Enrique Rodriguez, the three Spaniards, all of them firefighters from Seville, of “attempting to smuggle people” into the European Union, with the lead prosecutor proposing they are guilty; had they not been acquitted, they would face up to 10 years in prison.
Balkananalyses