ATHENS: A Turkish-flagged cargo ship carrying about 400 migrants is sailing slowly off the island of Karpathos after sending out a distress signal on Friday and will dock at a Greek port to disembark the migrants, a Greek coast guard official said on Saturday.
The vessel could not sail independently and was being towed by a Greek coast guard vessel, the official said. It sent the distress signal near the island of Crete with the coast guard quoting passengers as saying it had sailed from Turkey.
“The ship is sailing very slowly off Karpathos island, carrying mostly Afghan migrants. It will dock at a Greek port which has not been decided yet,” the official told Reuters, declining to be named.
Karpathos is the second largest of the Dodecanese islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea.
On Friday Greece’s Shipping Ministry had asked Turkey to accept the vessel’s return to Turkey, a migration ministry official said. Greece’s migration minister had contacted Turkish authorities and the EU Commission to resolve the matter.
Greece is the main route into the European Union for asylum-seekers arriving from Turkey. The number of arrivals has fallen sharply since 2016 after the EU and Ankara agreed a deal to stop migrants from crossing to Greece.
Nearly 1 million people, mainly Syrian refugees, arrived in the EU in 2015 after crossing to Greek islands close to Turkey. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August, many EU states fear a replay of that crisis.
On Tuesday, four migrants, three of them children, drowned after a boat in which they and 23 others were trying to cross from Turkey to Greece sank off the island of Chios.
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Turkish-flagged cargo ship with migrants to dock at Greek port
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Turkish-flagged cargo ship with migrants to dock at Greek port
- The vessel, carrying about 400 migrants, could not sail independently and was being towed by a Greek coast guard vessel
- It sent the distress signal near the island of Crete with the coast guard quoting passengers as saying it had sailed from Turkey
UK pro-Palestinian activists not guilty of burglary over raid at Israeli firm Elbit
LONDON: Six British pro-Palestinian activists were acquitted of aggravated burglary on Wednesday over a 2024 raid on Israeli defense firm Elbit’s factory, with a jury unable to reach verdicts on other charges including criminal damage.
Prosecutors said the six defendants were members of the now-banned group Palestine Action, which organized a meticulously planned assault on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, causing about 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) of damage.
Prosecutors had told a jury at London’s Woolwich Crown Court at the start of the trial in November that the six were part of a larger group that used a white former prison van to smash into the factory in the early hours of August 6, 2024.
Some of the group used fireworks and smoke grenades to keep security guards at bay, while others caused “extensive damage” inside the factory by smashing equipment with crowbars and hammers and spraying red paint, prosecutor Deanna Heer said.
The defendants said they were simply motivated to destroy weapons to stop what they described as Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and disavowed violence against people.
Not guilty verdicts and hung jury
The six on trial – Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31 – all denied charges of aggravated burglary, violent disorder and criminal damage.
They were all acquitted of the burglary offense while Rajwani, Rogers and Devlin were found not guilty of violent disorder.
The jury could not reach verdicts on the same charge against Head, Corner and Kamio after more than 36-and-a-half hours of deliberation.
Corner had also denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent for hitting a female police sergeant with a sledgehammer. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on that count.
The defendants hugged in the dock and waved to supporters in the public gallery, who cheered loudly after the judge had left the court.
Britain proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last July, almost a year after the Elbit incident took place, making it a crime to be a member.
Judge Jeremy Johnson had told the jurors they must consider the case “on the evidence, not on the basis of what you or anyone else thinks about Palestine Action or the war in Gaza.”
Heer said on Wednesday that prosecutors wanted time to consider whether to seek a retrial on the counts on which the jury could not reach verdicts. ($1 = 0.7294 pounds)
Prosecutors said the six defendants were members of the now-banned group Palestine Action, which organized a meticulously planned assault on the Elbit Systems UK facility in Bristol, southwest England, causing about 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) of damage.
Prosecutors had told a jury at London’s Woolwich Crown Court at the start of the trial in November that the six were part of a larger group that used a white former prison van to smash into the factory in the early hours of August 6, 2024.
Some of the group used fireworks and smoke grenades to keep security guards at bay, while others caused “extensive damage” inside the factory by smashing equipment with crowbars and hammers and spraying red paint, prosecutor Deanna Heer said.
The defendants said they were simply motivated to destroy weapons to stop what they described as Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and disavowed violence against people.
Not guilty verdicts and hung jury
The six on trial – Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31 – all denied charges of aggravated burglary, violent disorder and criminal damage.
They were all acquitted of the burglary offense while Rajwani, Rogers and Devlin were found not guilty of violent disorder.
The jury could not reach verdicts on the same charge against Head, Corner and Kamio after more than 36-and-a-half hours of deliberation.
Corner had also denied causing grievous bodily harm with intent for hitting a female police sergeant with a sledgehammer. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on that count.
The defendants hugged in the dock and waved to supporters in the public gallery, who cheered loudly after the judge had left the court.
Britain proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last July, almost a year after the Elbit incident took place, making it a crime to be a member.
Judge Jeremy Johnson had told the jurors they must consider the case “on the evidence, not on the basis of what you or anyone else thinks about Palestine Action or the war in Gaza.”
Heer said on Wednesday that prosecutors wanted time to consider whether to seek a retrial on the counts on which the jury could not reach verdicts. ($1 = 0.7294 pounds)
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