The Kalamata Trap:

Thirty hours before their detention, the nine Egyptians were crammed into a rickety fishing boat that left Tobruk in Libya, at dawn on June 10, 2023, bound for Italy. But the boat lost its way at sea and entered Greek waters, where it sank a few meters away from a Greek coast guard vessel. The majority of those on the boat were lost, as only 104 migrants were rescued. The bodies of 82 who drowned were also recovered, in an incident that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) categorized as “possibly the worst maritime tragedy in Greece in recent years.”

The arrest of the nine Egyptians, a few hours after that “disaster,” is a pattern that the Greek authorities have become accustomed to since the European Union signed an agreement with Turkiye to tighten its border in 2016. With every migrant boat seized within its territorial waters, the Greek coast guard arrests a group of migrants on board on charges of smuggling and forming a criminal organization. This approach has become a norm since 2020, and has been adopted by the Greek authorities to implement what is known as the “Pushback” policy aimed at terrorize migrants before reaching the Greek borders, both sea and land.

In this investigation, we could prove that this pattern has resulted in the deaths of refugees at sea and the imprisonment of survivors without evidence, to prevent others from reaching Greece. By tracing the final journey of more than 800 migrants from Syria, Egypt and among them other nationalities searching for a safe haven in Europe, we reveal an official Greek approach to deflect attention from the causes of the boat's sinking, through the detention of nine Egyptian migrants in Greece's Nafplio prison for a year without evidence before they were acquitted in the first session of their trial. This report also investigates the trap set for them, through exclusive interviews conducted with survivors from inside their prison, as well as revealing the links of a Libyan smuggler to the boat that sank in Greece in June 2023, as per victims accusations.

Since 2020, Greece has had a reputation for practicing “pushback,” or pushing migrant boats out of its borders, which explains why the migrants on the sunken Mutawakkil boat, tried to stir their boat away from the Greek border to reach Italian waters. In several reports documented by Alaram Phone between February 24, 2020 and January 2024, thousands of migrants were shot and beaten, as well as deliberately not rescued at sea by Greek authorities: “Migrants know full well that contact with the Greek coast guard, Greek police or Greek border guards means violence and pain, and because of systematic pushbacks (forcible returns outside Greece's borders), migrant boats try to avoid Greece, traveling much longer distances and risking lives at sea.”

Through an interactive map, Alarm Phone has documented “countless” cases of Greek border guards forcibly pushing migrants and boats out of their borders, resulting in the deaths of many migrants. Alarm Phone “have also documented cases where overloaded boats have capsized because they took longer routes in an attempt to avoid Greek authorities (...) Greece's desire to prevent people from reaching its territory is stronger than the need to save hundreds of lives,” Alarm Phone adds.

Alarm Phone's data and multiple accounts of Greece's policy of repelling migrants are consistent with official statistics from the European Union and European organizations that monitor violations against refugees entering Europe illegally through Greece. Forensic Architecture, a research organization at the University of London, documented 2,010 incidents of violence and forced return of refugees (drift-backs) by Greek border guards and police between 2020 and 2023, resulting in the expulsion of 55,445 asylum seekers, in addition to documenting that the Greek coast guard threw 32 asylum seekers directly into the sea, 24 others died and 17 cases of disappearance were all recorded. On January 11, 2024, Aegean Boat Report (ABR) documented that 46 migrants, including 21 children, hid in a forest after their boat landed on the island of Lesbos, for fear of being forcibly returned to the Turkish sea border by the Greek authorities.

As a result of this policy, the European Court of Human Rights referred eight of the 47 cases filed against Greece between January and December 2021 for “systematic violation of human rights at its borders.” On July 7, 2022 and January 16, 2024, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Greece for violating the European Convention on Human Rights for its degrading treatment of refugees, violating the rights of survivors and imposing arbitrary judicial proceedings against them, and the Greek coast guard's opening fire fatally and killing a refugee.

Despite its condemnation, Greek authorities have continued their approach of forcibly pushing back migrants beyond their borders, according to FAJ's interactive map. The European Commission for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), a coalition of 127 nongovernmental organizations in 40 European countries, said that forced returns of refugees will continue through 2024 by forcing migrants out of Greek waters.

This track record of intercepting migrant boats before approaching the Greek mainland hints at the fate that awaited “Al-Mutawakkil boat,” which struggled, as it fought drowning from the morning of June 13, 2023, until dawn the next day near the Greek Coast Guard vessel PPLS 920.

At 2 a.m. Greek time, an official statement from the Greek Border Guard said the Coast Guard vessel saw Al-Mutawakkil's boat “veer significantly to the right, then left, then right again, causing it to capsize. After about 10 to 15 minutes, the boat sank completely and a number of passengers fell into the sea.” However, this official statement by the Greek authorities contradicts all the testimonies of the survivors given to us and to the Greek prosecution, confirming that the coast guard vessel tied their boat with a rope and dragged it with force, causing it to capsize.

انتشال جثث ضحايا المركب - المصدر أرشيف Eurokinissi

Only 104 migrants, including Mohamed Emad and Ahmed Adel, survived the drowning, 82 bodies were recovered and more than 750 people were lost at sea. Mohamed Emad’s described to us the last moment before the drowning of Al-Mutawakkil boat, and his testimony is consistent with those of other survivors of different nationalities, which they gave to the Greek prosecution and various media outlets: “In the last moments, my friend Islam woke me up to tell me that the coast guard boat had tied the boat to tow it, but after a few minutes, the boat was pulled strongly by the coast guard ship, which led to the sinking of the boat... I managed to swim, but my friend Islam disappeared in the waves and drowned, and the screams of children while drowning prompted me to return to the boat, and I pulled two of the little ones and ferried them to the coast guard boat.”

According to the survivors' testimonies, the Coast Guard vessel PPlS-920 pulled away from the site of the drowned boat, and about half an hour later, which the survivors described as a long time, the coast Guard vessel turned its lights on the site of the wreckage of the boat. The survivors tried to swim to the Coast Guard ship, but it was too far away. The PPlS-920 was equipped with cameras that Frontex (the European Border and Coast Guard Agency) says are operational and automatically record all operations carried out by the vessel. But the day after the incident, the Greek Coast Guard said the boat's cameras were not working.

An official Frontex report reveals that Greek authorities have been applying the same same practice of forcibly towing migrant boats out of Greek waters. Regarding Al-Mutawakkil boat , Frontex said it offered assistance three times to the Greek Coast Guard to participate in the rescue operations, but Greece did not respond. Some of the 104 survivors, in their testimonies to Greek police and prosecutors, attribute the sinking of the boat to the coast guard's attempt to tow it into Italian waters, and not during its attempts to allegedly rescuing them.

Greek lawyer Effie Dhusi, legal advisor to the refugee support organization HIAS, points out that the findings of the previous study are in large parts similar to the case of the nine surviving defendants from the AL-Mutawakkil boat incident. The information that is published from time to time about different cases seem to follow a specific approach and pattern, aimed at blaming illegal migrants for whatever befall them as they arrive at the Greek border to seek asylum.

In the al-Mutawakkil boat incident, the nine Egyptians remained detained in Nafplio prison in the south of the country, refusing to confess to the crime, and their statement were consistent claiming that they were just migrants who paid the human traffickers their travel bill, after which the Greek prosecution rejected their lawyer's request for conditional release until the case investigation is completed. In August 2023, a committee formed by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by the assistant minister for consular affairs, visited the defendants in prison to discuss the case.

After its visit, the committee submitted a memo to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry in which it said: “The [detained Egyptian] citizens reported that a number of Greek officers visited them in prison. These officers claimed to be from Interpol and interrogated them and threatened them with life imprisonment if they did not confess their crime. These officers said that Greece has excellent relations with Egypt, and that they might arrest their relatives in Egypt and abuse them,” to force them to confess being migrant smugglers.

Before the Egyptian Foreign Ministry committee was formed and arrived in Greece to discuss the case of the Egyptian defendants, Egypt-which has shared an unprecedented alliance with Greece since 2019-had launched a manhunt for illegal immigration brokers, following tensions in Egyptian governorates the day after the sinking of al-Mutawakkil's boat.

After 11 days of investigations, on June 25, 2023, the International Cooperation Department of the Egyptian Public Prosecution office issued the Interior Ministry's Department for Combating Illegal Migration and Human Trafficking a warrant to arrest those whom the families accused of being responsible for the migration of their children on al-Mutawakel's boat.

According to the documents we obtained, the Egyptian Interior Ministry's investigation was based on information provided by brokers involved in smuggling young people abroad, as well as testimonies from the families of the surviving and missing Egyptian migrants on the stricken boat, who provided the names of the smugglers that were paid to smuggle their children. According to arrest warrants issued by the Egyptian Ministry of Interior's Public Funds and Organized Crime Sector, the investigations led to the accusation of 35 Egyptians and one Libyan who were responsible for the Al-Mutawakkil boat, led by M.S.A. 35 years old, a Libyan national known as Abu Sultan, and that is the same name that survivors pointed to as being responsible for the boat. The Egyptian police arrested 23 of them, while the rest of the suspects (13 people) were not arrested.

On July 3, 2023, three Egyptians hailing from the same town from which the migrants departed , were arrested for their role sailing the boat, according to the Egyptian prosecution investigations. The investigations’ technical examination of the phone of one of the accused, H.M.A, revealed that he took a photo of the captain of the boat, M.A.A., and began searching for him on social media the day after the boat sank.

On July 8, 2023, the Egyptian Public Prosecution office sent to its Greek counterpart the findings of the preliminary investigations into the migrants smuggling network responsible for the “Al-Mutawakkil boat.” Egypt asked Greece for judicial cooperation by sending the findings of the Greek prosecution's investigations with the Egyptian survivors and defendants, “in order to establish the truth regarding this crime,” according to the text of the memo sent to Greece. But the names of the nine Egyptians detained in Greece were not among the list of smugglers responsible for the boat that Egypt sent to Greece.

Greece did not provide an answer for Egypt’s request for judicial cooperation. On August 30, 2023, the Egyptian Public Prosecution summoned the director of the Criminal Information Department in the Ministry of Interior's Anti-Human Trafficking Sector, to ask him about the investigations carried out by the police. One of the most prominent questions asked was about the nature of the relationship between the survivors detained in Greece on charges of responsibility for the Al-Mutawakkil boat and those arrested by the Egyptian police. The officer in charge of the investigation replied that after investigating the smuggling network in Egypt, it was determined that the nine survivors detained by Greece were “victims and the relationship between them and the criminal network in Egypt is limited to the fact that they have been lured by the promise of job opportunities in a European country,” adding that the survivors detained in Greece paid between 140 and 160,000 Egyptian pounds for each journey ($2500-$3000).

Egypt sent a further urgent request to Greece for judicial cooperation in the case of the nine Egyptians accused in Greece, in order to benefit from it the Egyptian side of the investigations and “reach the real perpetrators” responsible for the stricken boat. The latest urgent dispatch included the Egyptian prosecution's investigations conclusions indicating that there was no connection between the nine survivors detained in Greece and the smuggling network responsible for the boat.

According to a September 20, 2023 memo issued by Egypt’s Public Prosecution office, the competent Greek authorities finally responded to Egypt that judicial cooperation was not possible “at this time,” despite the Greek authorities' initial interest in obtaining the Egyptian investigations into the case.

Greece's failure to cooperate judicially with Egypt in a case involving Egyptian nationals on its territory indicates its violation of the Agreement on Judicial Cooperation between Egypt and Greece signed on December 22, 1986, on which the Egyptian prosecution relied when it asked Greece to expedite the transmission of everything related to the case to Egypt.

From the judicial note sent by Egypt and received by Greece, it can be seen that the Greek authorities have known since July 2023, that the Egyptian survivors detained in Nafplio prison were not connected to the smuggling network responsible for the smuggling boat Al-Mutawakkil. Despite that, the Greek prosecutors did not release the Egyptian survivors or take in consideration and follow any of the leads provided by Egypt, instead, it referred the nine Egyptians for criminal prosecution on charges that carry up to life in prison in February 2024.

Lawyer Ioanna Bigazzi of the Human Right Legal project in Greece says that the Greek authorities were not serious about uncovering the truth about what happened during the sinking of Al-Mutawakkil boat, and that by arresting the nine Egyptians, they did not seek to conduct a real judicial investigation but rather to protect the Greek coast guard from any accountability, an approach consistent with European “push back policies” by prioritizing border control over human lives and justice, adding that the tragedy of the Al-Mutawakil boat is the result of years of deterrence and impunity, according to a study by Borderline-Egypt.

According to a study by the German organization Borderline- Europe, titled“Greece's legal state is in danger. The systematic criminalization of migrants for driving a boat or a car”, migrant trials in smuggling and human trafficking cases in Greece are usually characterized by quick verdicts, taking on average only 37 minutes, and this time is reduced to 17 minutes in trials involving state-appointed lawyers, while the study recorded only six minutes for the shortest trial.

Across the water on the Egyptian side, the investigation into the network accused of smuggling continued. On October 17, 2023, the detained accused were referred to trial, which took place in Wadi al-Natroun on February 5, 2024. Members of the network were sentenced from five years to life in prison for committing a cross-border crime, and of forming a criminal network, and using children to commit the crime, while nine defendants were acquitted. On May 14, 2024, the Tanta Court of Appeals convened and upheld the previous guilty verdict, but sentenced the defendants who were acquitted in the first instance to five years in prison, while acquitting only one defendant in the case.

While the previous verdict was a temporary relief for the families of those missing from the Al-Mutawakkil boat, the families of Ahmed Adel and Mohamed Emad were waiting for their, and their seven companions trial session in Greece. Of the long-awaited trial, Ghada, the mother of Mohamed Emad, told us: “The Greeks used our children as scapegoats, I felt that the entire Greek government was against the nine Egyptians in order to cover up what really happened on the day the boat sank, that is why it was difficult for them in Greece to release our children, and this idea has kept me terrified every night since the day they were arrested.”

In preparation for his trial, Emad has been trying to keep up with Greek news while in prison, and learning Greek to understand what is happening around him, especially after his fellow survivors were assaulted more than once. He tells us from his cell: “We were beaten more than once... one of the policemen during the investigation assaulted two of my fellow defendants, Ahmed Adel was beaten during the investigation, Mustafa Khalil was kicked in the chest... We were beaten for no reason.”

Ihab al-Rawi, founder of the Berlin-based organization United Rescue Group, told us that they have documented many testimonies from Arab migrants who arrived in Greece via the AL- Mutawakkil boat and other migrant boats, confirming that they were assaulted by the Greek authorities, some of whom were tortured and electrocuted. He noted that the goal of the Greek authorities is to intimidate and deter migrants who are considering illegally migrating to Europe from passing through Greece, a policy that Greece has succeeded in enforcing and has made many illegal migrant boats avoid approaching Greek waters at their own peril.

However, statistics show that as the pattern of forcible returns from the Greek border continues, the number of boats migrating to Europe via Greece continues to increase. As of November 17, 2024, some 47,850 asylum-seeking illegal migrants arrived in Greece by sea, almost the same number as in 2023.