A 26-year-old Afghan man is charged with endangering his youngster’s life by taking him on a dinghy that capsized.
Athens, Greece – A 26-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan is going through as much as 10 years in jail in Greece for the loss of life of his five-year-old son, who drowned after boarding a dinghy from Turkey to Greece along with his father on November 8, 2020.
Hafez, the pseudonym of a defendant who spoke to Al Jazeera on situation of anonymity, will stand trial on Wednesday, charged with endangering the lifetime of his youngster.
Hafez spoke quietly as he remembered the fateful journey that led to the loss of life of his son.
He described hugging his son tightly because the boat with 24 folks on board hit rocks off the Greek island of Samos within the jap Aegean and capsized.
The boy disappeared within the water and was later discovered by Greek authorities, washed up on the shores of Cape Prasso, a steep and treacherously rocky a part of the island, generally known as “the Cape of Dying”.
Hafez discovered it tough to enter the small print of that evening however mentioned that he got here to Europe, as a whole lot of hundreds of others have completed, looking for a greater life for his youngster.
His asylum utility had been rejected twice in Turkey and he confronted deportation to Afghanistan.
“I simply got here right here for my son’s future,” he mentioned, recalling the quite a few occasions his son requested him when he might go to high school.
Hafez can't perceive why he's going through jail time for this tragic occasion that noticed his son die.
“It’s not simply me. There are various individuals who have misplaced their households, their sons, their wives [en route to Greece],” he mentioned. “What can they show? That the accident occurred to us?”
Alan Kurdi
Hafez’s son is considered one of many youngsters who died within the Aegean whereas looking for security in Europe.
One of the well-known instances was that of two-year-old Syrian, Alan Kurdi, who drowned after his boat capsized on the journey from Turkey to Greece, and whose physique washed up on a Turkish seaside in 2015.
Kurdi would grow to be a logo of the refugee disaster when greater than 1,000,000 folks arrived to assert asylum in Europe.
Dimitris Choulis, Hafez’s lawyer, mentioned that so far as he is aware of, Hafez’s case is the primary case of an asylum seeker being charged in Greece for the loss of life of his youngster in a shipwreck.
Choulis advised Al Jazeera that he believes the costs in opposition to his consumer haven't any advantage.
“I consider he shall be discovered harmless,” he mentioned firmly.
The timeline of occasions that evening within the Aegean can also be in query. Choulis mentioned it took authorities greater than six hours to conduct a rescue operation that evening.
Aegean Boat Report, a Norwegian NGO that displays asylum seeker arrivals in Greece and is commonly contacted by arrivals in misery, confirmed to Al Jazeera that that they had referred to as the port police on Samos at 12:06am on November 8 (21:06 GMT on November 7), 2020 to tell them of an arrival and that there have been folks lacking.
In keeping with Choulis, asylum seekers who made it onto the rocks from the shipwreck testified that they noticed a ship patrolling the realm which shone its lights on them however then left.
The Greek Coast Guard advised media on the time it had initially responded to a misery name however had not discovered anyone.
At 6am (03:00 GMT), Hafez, who had been desperately trying to find his son, encountered cops and advised them what occurred.
By the point his son was discovered that morning, it was too late to avoid wasting him. The boy’s physique was recovered close to that of a pregnant girl, who was unconscious however alive and gave delivery days later within the island’s hospital.
The ordeal didn't finish there, Choulis remembers how Hafez was then taken in handcuffs to determine his son’s physique.
The lawyer recollects ready outdoors for the bereaved father after he had been to see his youngster’s physique. Hafez was inconsolable, Choulis mentioned.
“Once they got here [out] his handcuffs had been off, [the police officers] had been supporting him as he couldn’t stroll,” mentioned Choulis.
“I don’t suppose that he was ever OK after that.”
One other defendant
Choulis can also be representing one other asylum seeker, Hasan (one other pseudonym), ,who will stand trial on the identical day as Hafez, for being the driving force of the boat that Hafez and his son had been in.
Hasan, additionally from Afghanistan, is going through life imprisonment for the five-year-old’s loss of life, on prime of as much as 230 years in jail for endangering the lives of 23 folks excluding himself.
Hasan is considered one of a rising variety of asylum seekers who've confronted smuggling costs in Greece for being on the wheel of the boat, in what human rights teams and lecturers have mentioned is an growing development to criminalise migration.
Hasan says he was pressured by smugglers to steer the boat and had no different selection however to conform.
“This trial is a part of a broader sample of states criminalising these looking for security from conflict and persecution, in addition to people and organisations looking for to assist them,” Dr Gemma Chicken, senior lecturer of politics and worldwide relations on the College of Liverpool within the UK, advised Al Jazeera.
“Over latest years, we have now seen comparable issues taking place in Greece and Italy in addition to a transfer in the direction of violent responses of state actors on land and sea borders all through Europe, which have repeatedly been proven to place folks in danger,” she mentioned.
On Might 5, 2022, three asylum seekers from Syria, who had been on board a ship which was capsized off the Greek island of Paros in December 2021, had been convicted for “facilitating unauthorised entry” in Greece and collectively sentenced to 439 years in jail.
‘Powerful however truthful’
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has persistently defended his nation’s method to migration, denying reviews of unlawful pushbacks of asylum seekers on the borders and insisting that authorities observe the letter of the regulation.
Mitsotakis has mentioned the nation has a “powerful however truthful” immigration coverage the place human rights are absolutely revered.
Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi, talking about Hafez’s case to media on the time, mentioned it was vital that the circumstances of any deaths had been completely probed.
“If there may be the lack of human life, it should be investigated whether or not some folks, by means of negligence or intentionally, acted outdoors the boundaries of the regulation,” he mentioned.
“The individuals who select to get into boats that are unseaworthy, and are pushed by individuals who haven't any expertise of the ocean, clearly put human lives in danger.”
Hafez nonetheless has no thought tips on how to decide up the items of his life from that evening.
“What’s occurred to me is in my thoughts this time for a very long time, I need to erase it, however I can't,” he mentioned.
Hafez will stand trial on Samos this week, the island the place his son is buried in a graveyard alongside many others who perished looking for asylum in Greece.
“I believed that possibly right here can be protected for my son, possibly I might construct my son’s future right here,” mentioned Hafez slowly. “I’ve not been myself since then.”
A spokesperson from the Greek overseas ministry advised Al Jazeera it couldn't touch upon the trial.
“Instances beneath judicial investigation and court docket selections, can't be commented by the Greek authorities, because the judiciary is impartial,” the ministry mentioned.
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