Egyptian shipwreck survivors enter a police station to be processed following their release from prison, in the town of Nafplio, about 136 kilometers southwest of Athens, Greece, Wednesday, May 22, 2024. A Greek court Monday dismissed a case against nine Egyptian defendants accused of causing a shipwreck off the southern coast of Greece last June that killed several hundred migrants travelling from Libya to Italy. The suspects had spent 11 months in pre-trial prison detention.
The nine, who have been in pre-trial custody since their rescue last year, had been charged with being members of a migrant smuggling ring and were accused of having caused the shipwreck. They had faced several life sentences if convicted. The Egyptians’ defense team had argued that the nine were not crew members of the ill-fated trawler but had been paying passengers who were mistakenly identified as crew by nine other survivors, and that they were being used as scapegoats by authorities eager to put all the blame for the tragedy on the trawler’s crew.
Several survivors have said the boat capsized after the Greek coast guard attempted to tow it, an accusation Greek authorities have vehemently denied. A Naval Court investigation into the sinking is still underway.
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