Syrian Gets 145 Years in Jail After Migrants Drown

A court in Greece has sentenced a man accused of smuggling migrants to a 145-year prison sentence after a disaster at sea which claimed the lives of 12 illegal immigrants off the country's coast.

A 21-year-old Syrian national alleged to have been working as a people smuggler has been sentenced to 145 years in prison by a court in Rhodes after being found responsible for the deaths of 12 people, among them infants and children, who died when a boat carrying 28 passengers capsized in January 2014 in the southern Aegean Sea.

“The Felony Appeals Court of Dodecanese in Rhodes argued that the young Syrian was the captain of the migrant-carrying vessel and, despite his detailed report and witness testimonies, imposed on him a 145-year-and-three-month prison sentence,” reported the Greek Reporter on Friday, adding that under Greek law, the man is bound to serve 25 years of the sentence.

In addition to the jail term, the man was also given fines totalling €570,000, calculated at €50,000 for the transportation of each migrant, the paper reports, while the jail term of 145 was arrived at by imposing 15 years imprisonment in connection with each of the victims. The Syrian also received six months in prison and a €50,000 fine for entering the country illegally.

Reports in the Greek media have cast doubt on the decision of the Greek courts to hold the defendant responsible for the tragedy, which occurred when the fishing boat carrying 26 Afghans and two Syrians was being towed by a Greek coast guard vessel. The UN refugee agency called for an inquiry into the incident, citing survivor testimony, according to which the boat was being towed back in the direction of Turkey by the Greek coast guard at the time of the accident.

According to the BBC, officials from the Greek coastguard said that the migrants were kept in their own boat during the towing operation due to safety concerns over adverse weather conditions, and their subsequent panicking caused the boat to capsize. The coastguard maintained it had received a distress signal from the boat, and that it wasn't carrying out a push-back operation to take the vessel into Turkish waters.

Tovimi.com reports that the Syrian argued in court that he himself was a refugee on the boat, and rejected the accusation that he had been at the helm. The news website reports that Mania Barsefski from Syriza's Political Secretariat condemned the sentence, saying that the court had “reversed the roles, declaring the victim – in this case the convicted Syrian refugee, into a victimizer,” and also testified in court on the defendant's behalf.