On Tuesday, charges were dropped against nine Egyptian men accused of causing one of the Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwrecks off Greece last year. A Greek court ruled it had no jurisdiction over the case since the disaster occurred in international waters.
Up to 700 migrants from Pakistan, Syria, and Egypt boarded a fishing trawler in Libya, bound for Italy, before it sank off the coast of Pylos in southwestern Greece on June 14. While 104 survivors were rescued, only 82 bodies were recovered.
The accused men, aged between 21 and 41, were arrested hours after the boat sank and had been in pre-trial detention on charges of migrant smuggling, causing a shipwreck, and participating in a criminal organization. They denied any wrongdoing.
“This is a great victory for human rights in Greece,” Spyros Pantazis, one of their lawyers, told media.
Defense lawyers, rights groups, and witnesses had long disputed the men’s culpability.