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ATHENS – A refugee in a boat who died from a rifle shot fired by a Greek Port Authority Sergeant during a chase was hit in the head, a doctor who examined the body reportedly said, although initial reports were that the engine was the target.
The incident happened as the Greek vessel, on a patrol to keep refugees from reaching Greek islands, said the shots were fired after the boat piloted by two Turkish human smugglers tried to ram it off the coast of the island of Symi.
The victim was a 39-year-old Kuwaiti but Kathimerini said the case file included a document signed by a doctor at the island’s health center stated that he was called “for a reported injury to a migrant.”
It added that the doctor found the victim “without vital signs who suffered a head wound from a firearm, with the head being a possible portal of entry and the the left jaw the point of exit,” according to the document.
It was said that the patrol boat had spotted a speedboat with migrants moving toward the coast of Symi and pursued it as the operators of the vessel sped up and tried evasive maneuvers to get away.
The report said the patrol boat Sergeant fired a G3A3 assault rifle twice in the air as a warning and twice at the engine of the speedboat in order to immobilize it but that one of the bullets hit the victim in the head, not said if it was a ricochet.
A preliminary investigation led to Symi Port Authority officers questioning seven migrants on the boat as witnesses, six relatives from Kuwait and one Palestinian national, all of whom reportedly said two Turks, 24 and 16, were driving the boat.
“Throughout the entire trip, the boat was operated by them alone,” all seven said. They also noted that during the entire trip and especially during the chase, “we were all crouched down,” including the victim, the report said.
They also testified that the operator was “going at high speed and making dangerous maneuvers,” but didn’t say there was an attempt to ram the patrol boat, as the officer who opened fire on the speedboat described.
The 44-year-old Sergeant said that, “He again turned the boat toward us, resulting in ramming us again, this time from the side,” but no details were given what happened after the shooting although the drivers were arrested.
QUESTIONS ABOUND
The refugees were also detained but Dimitris Georgakopoulos, a lawyer for one of them, said the men signed documents that weren’t translated into Turkish and questioned the procedure and aftermath of the detention.
The lawyer also reportedly submitted a request for a search of the cell phones of everyone involved to see if there are any videos of the chase and he wanted an independent examination of both vessels to check for evidence of ramming.
It was earlier reported by Reuters that the port authority said the victim “probably died from a bullet”and that shots were fired at the outboard engine of the migrant boat in an effort to immobilize it after it ignored warnings to stop.
https://gcaptain.com/greek-coastguard-fires-on-migrant-boat-one-dead/
The Port Authority told the news site it is investigating and a source not named said that a prosecutor had also ordered the arrest of the officer who fired the shots and the confiscation of that weapon.
The boat, carrying 14 migrants – eight men, one woman and five minors – had left Turkey’s nearby shores and unlawfully entered Greek territorial waters, added the Port Authority, aiding the Coast Guard in trying to keep out refugees and migrants.
Greece has faced ongoing criticism over its treatment of migrants. In April 2023, the Aegean Boat Report registered “57 illegal pushbacks in the Aegean Sea” by the Coast Guard, which the government denied.
The rights organization found that in that month alone, 1,711 people were “denied their right to seek asylum” and that “their human rights (were) violated by the Greek government,” noted the legal news site Jurist.
The Aegean Boat Report added that in the prior three years, Greece pushed back 58,000 migrants from Turkey in 2,167 separate cases it said violated international laws protecting refugees, but the government said that didn’t happen.
The BBC reported in June that the (Greek Coast Guard caused the death of dozens of migrants in the Mediterranean over a three-year period,” which has been claimed by human rights groups, activists and major media in other incidents.
Refugees try to reach Greece, the islands and across the land border with Turkey, which is supposed to contain more than 4 million of them who fled their homelands, primarily Syria and Afghanistan.
