ATEHNS: The head of Greece’s coast guard has been prosecuted over the country’s deadliest migrant shipwreck which claimed hundreds of lives, rights groups representing the survivors and victims said Friday.
“By order of the prosecutor of the court of appeal, criminal proceedings are to be brought against four senior officers of the coast guard, including its current chief,” Trifonas Kontizas, the groups said in a joint statement.
The move in connection to the 2023 sinking follows similar proceedings initiated for 17 members of the coast guard in May.
State security personnel are rarely sanctioned in Greece.
Survivors on board the rusty and overloaded trawler Adriana said the coast guard failed to respond adequately when it capsized and sank on the night of June 13, 2023 off Pylos, southern Greece, en route to Italy.
It was carrying more than 750 people, according to the United Nations, but only 82 bodies were found.
The felony charges include failure to rescue and assist persons in distress and manslaughter by negligence, the rights groups said Friday.
The latest case had originally been shelved by the prosecutor of the Piraeus Naval Court but survivors lodged an appeal.
Among the 104 survivors, dozens have filed a group criminal complaint, alleging the coast guard took hours to mount a response when the boat was in trouble, despite warnings from EU border agency Frontex and the NGO Alarm Phone.
The boat was sailing from Tobruk, Libya to Italy. As well as Syrians and Palestinians, it was carrying nearly 350 Pakistanis, according to the Pakistani government.
Survivors said the coast guard eventually responded and was towing the vessel when it finally capsized and sank 47 nautical miles off the coast of Pylos.
The prosecutor has said that “the sudden and powerful towing by the coast guard vessel appears to be the only possible and active cause” that led the trawler to capsize.
The coast guard has said it communicated with people on board who “refused any help,” rendering any rescue operation in high seas risky.
But lawyers for the survivors have said the coast guard chose to dispatch just a patrol boat from Crete — and not a larger rescue tugboat stationed closer by at the port of Gytheion in the Peloponnese region.
The patrol boat’s voyage data recorder was damaged and was only repaired two months after the accident, they said — nor was there any video footage from the patrol boat.