Volunteer from Cork facing charges in Greece linked to migrant search and rescue work in Aegean

A migrant and refugee aid worker from Ireland who is facing trial in Greece on January 10th believes the case will either be adjourned again to a later date or he will be “unfairly tried”.

Sean Binder (28) is among 24 aid workers charged with offences arising from their work with a now defunct non-government organisation, Emergency Response Centre International, which was involved in search and rescue operations for migrants and asylum seekers crossing the Aegean.

The bringing of the charges, in 2018, had an immediate and ongoing “chilling effect” on search and rescue work generally across the Mediterranean, said Mr Binder.

“To pull folks at risk of drowning out of the water and then to end up in prison for doing that and being labelled a crook and a criminal for doing so I think is deeply troubling to a sense of what is right and what is wrong,” he told The Irish Times.

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Mr Binder, a German citizen who grew up in Cork and graduated from Trinity College Dublin, will travel to the Greek island of Lesbos for the trial but does not believe it will bring an end to the situation he has been facing since he was charged and held for more than 100 days in pretrial detention before being granted bail.

“We hope that the trial will run its course, but we fear that it might not,” he said. “There has been a very long delay in this trial, since 2018, and we have pushed as hard as we can for it. Only a trial will bring an end to this limbo.”

Speaking from Berlin, he said the charges had been broken into misdemeanour and felony charges by the Greek prosecutors because of the difference in the statutes of limitation that applied in each category. While misdemeanour charges have a five-year statute, felony charges can hang over an accused for up to fifteen years.

It is the misdemeanour charges that he is to face on January 10th. Even if they were thrown out by the court, the more serious felony charges, which could see him being jailed for more than twenty years, will still be hanging over him, with no indication when those charges might be brought to trial.

The more serious charges include formation and membership of a criminal organisation, facilitation of illegal entry, infringement of state secrets, possession of a radio without a licence, money laundering, espionage and forgery. The spying charge, he said, is based solely on his use of WhatsApp.

The original indictment against the defendants contained a series of basic errors only one of which have since been corrected and would make the January trial unfair if it went ahead, Mr Binder said. Alternatively, the three-judge court might decide to adjourn the trial. An earlier scheduled hearing in November 2021, was adjourned. Mr Binder and the other defendants reject the legitimacy of the charges and are anxious for their trials to go ahead.

The defendants include Greek and non-Greek citizens, including Sarah Mardini, a Syrian who was granted asylum in Germany. She is banned from entering Greece and so cannot attend a trial in which she is one of the defendants.

The charges against the aid workers has created uncertainty among all volunteers working on search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean as to whether they too might be charged with criminal offences, Mr Binder said.

“As long as there is a shadow of doubt over the legitimacy of bona fide search and rescue, the more people will be disincentivized from doing bone fide search and rescue work. You can see that right now. All the prosecutions that are happening now not just in Greece but across the European Union mean there are far fewer search and rescuers actively engaging in search and rescue work.”

Mr Binder said the Greek authorities wrongly believe search and rescue operations create an incentive for criminals involved in human trafficking. “However the research shows there is zero correlation between the two.”

Mr Binder has recently completed a law degree in London but is unable to progress with his career because he is the subject of pending criminal proceedings.

Having the charges hanging over him and the other defendants has created significant professional, financial and psychological pressures for them, he said.

“I think there is an idea that, well, you are not in prison so you are fine, and I would press very strongly against that assertion,” he said. “It still comes with doubt and uncertainty. Facing the possibility of more than 20 years in prison is just deeply frightening.”

Mr Binder said he has been receiving great support, including from his local MEP Grace O’Sullivan of the Green Party. However he believes the fact that Greece is an EU member state serves as a disincentive to member states getting involved in his case at executive level.