ATHENS: Greece has dropped criminal charges against dozens of international aid workers, ranging from spying to facilitating what authorities had called illegal entry into the country through the island of Lesbos, court documents showed on Tuesday.
Most of the 35 people, accused in 2020 of setting up a criminal organization and providing support to traffickers ferrying migrants, were German nationals. The rest included people from Norway, Austria, France, Spain, Switzerland and Bulgaria. They were arrested and had denied wrongdoing at the time.
The case was dropped due to inadequate evidence, the documents seen by Reuters showed.
“The detailed investigation of the case file has resoundingly quashed the police narrative which was pure fiction,” said Zaharias Kesses, a lawyer representing some of the aid workers.
Greece was on the front line of a huge surge of refugees and migrants to Europe in 2015 and 2016, many through its outlying islands close to Turkiye, including Lesbos. That flow has since ebbed.
The case was based on a 2020 operation by the Greek intelligence service EYP and the anti-terrorism unit with the code name Alkmini, and involved undercover agents who traveled as migrants from Turkiye to Lesbos.
Greek intelligence services were initially involved because the workers, who were using an alarm phone for migrants and asylum seekers in need of rescue at sea, were thought to have passed on information on Greek coast guard movements and vessel equipment.
But a magistrate’s investigation concluded the information and visual material collected were not confidential.
“There is not enough evidence to support the accusations against the defendants,” the documents said.
Greek court drops criminal charges against 35 international aid workers
https://arab.news/mmkap
Greek court drops criminal charges against 35 international aid workers
- The case was dropped due to inadequate evidence
- Greece was on the front line of a huge surge of refugees and migrants to Europe in 2015 and 2016
Trump says he’s dropping push for National Guard in Chicago, LA and Portland, Oregon, for now
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said he’s dropping — for now — his push to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a move that comes after legal roadblocks hung up the effort.
Trump said in a social media post Wednesday that he’s removing the Guard troops for now. “We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again — Only a question of time!” he wrote.
Troops had already left Los Angeles after the president deployed them earlier this year as part of a broader crackdown on crime and immigration. They had been sent to Chicago and Portland but were never on the streets as legal challenges played out.
Trump’s push to deploy the troops in Democrat-led cities has been met with legal challenges at nearly every turn.
The Supreme Court in December refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area as part of its crackdown on immigration. The order was not a final ruling but was a significant and rare setback by the high court for the president’s efforts.
In the nation’s capital, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued to halt the deployments of more than 2,000 guardsmen.
In Oregon, a federal judge permanently blocked the deployment of National Guard troops there.
California National Guard troops had already been removed from the streets of Los Angeles by Dec. 15 after a court ruling. But an appeals court had paused a separate part of the order that required control of the Guard to return to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In a Tuesday court filing, the Trump administration said it was no longer seeking a pause in that part of the order. That paves the way for the California National Guard troops to fully return to state control after Trump federalized the Guard in June.
