Delayed appeal trial of the Moria 4 set for 4 March 2024
PRESS RELEASE , 6 February 2024, Mytilini, Lesvos
On Monday 4 March 2024, R.F.M., S.M.H, S.A.M.S. and H.W., four of the six Afghan defendants who were accused and convicted for the fires that destroyed Moria refugee camp in September 2020, will appear before the Mixed-Jury Court of Appeals of the North Aegean in Lesvos, to challenge their conviction, represented in part by lawyers of the Legal Centre Lesvos. This appeal trial was originally scheduled to take place a year ago on 6 March 2023, but was postponed, without the ability to make any significant objection and arguments for their case.
On 13 June 2021, at the first instance trial the four had been convicted of “arson with danger to human life” by the Mixed Jury Court of Chios in an unfair trial that disregarded the basic procedural and substantive safeguards. Indicatively: 1) Under the pretext of COVID-19 measures, lawyers – trial observers of international organisations, a lawyer-representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), journalists of the domestic and international press, as well as the public were excluded from the courtroom. 2) None of the essential documents of the trial was translated into a language that the defendants could understand, and as a result they could not understand the charges against them. Further, during the trial, the interpretation provided to them by the court was inadequate. 3) Their conviction was based solely on the testimony of a witness who did not appear in court and who could not be cross examined. All four were sentenced to 10 years in prison, with no mitigating circumstances accepted. For three and a half years now, the four young men have been imprisoned in Greece. More details about the first instance trial can be found in an earlier post by the defence lawyers, which was released following the trial.
As a reminder, the fires that destroyed Moria camp in September 2020 came four and a half years after the EU-Turkey “Deal” turned the Aegean islands into prison islands for those forced to cross the border from Turkey, and Moria camp became the notorious symbol of the EU’s migration policies. Rather than recognising the destruction of Moria camp as an inevitable consequence of the “hotspot approach” and of the clear mismanagement of a camp with a lack of infrastructure that posed deadly dangers to residents, in particular during the COVID-19 pandemic; the Greek state arrested six young Afghan teenagers, namely, the “Moria 6”, and presented them as the sole criminally responsible for the fires.
Following their arrest, the case of the Moria 6 was separated, as two of the accused were registered as minors at the time of their arrest and were tried in a Court for Minors, and the other four were tried as adults. The two who were arrested as minors are also represented by the Legal Centre Lesvos, and saw their conviction confirmed on appeal in June 2022, and in the Supreme Court in October 2023.
As Legal Centre Lesvos, we hope that, despite the complete disregard to basic principles of justice at the first instance trial, the defendants will finally be able to present again the exculpatory evidence they had presented at their first court after almost three years, and that all four will finally be acquitted and released from prison.
We welcome your presence at the court on 4 March 2024 to observe and follow the trial and ensure that the four defendants are supported.
Press Contacts
Vicky Aggelidou, vicky@legalcentrelesvos.org
Lorraine Leete, lorraine@legalcentrelesvos.org
▻https://legalcentrelesvos.org/2024/02/06/delayed-appeal-trial-of-the-moria-4-set-for-4-march-2024
#justice #Moria #Grèce #Lesbos #procès #incendie #feu #réfugiés #migrations
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ajouté au fil de discussion sur cet incendie :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/876123
voir aussi :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/993810
►https://seenthis.net/messages/889353
►https://seenthis.net/messages/884157
►https://seenthis.net/messages/877116
►https://seenthis.net/messages/875743
et la métaliste sur les incendies dans des #camps_de_réfugiés :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/851143
