Greece: Four Afghan migrants arrested for arson attack in Moria | Human Rights Issues

Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.

Four Afghan rescue workers have been sentenced to 10 years in prison for their neutral stand on fire which destroyed the Moria camp in Greece last year.

A court in Chios found its defendants guilty of arson on Saturday as their lawyers denounced it as “unfair”, telling the AFP news agency to file an immediate appeal.

Afghan youths were taken to court with chains and are expected to return to the Avlona prison outside Athens, where they were held before sentencing.

In March, two other Afghan youths were sentenced to five years in prison.

Moria camp – Aegean island in Lesbos – many houses more than 10,000 people before it was destroyed by two fires in September 2020. No one was killed moto.

Greek authorities believe that the fire was set ablaze by later inmates way of solitude was placed after the charges of COVID-19 were found among the occupants of the area.

About 20 people, mostly members of the foreign coalition, gathered outside the court to ask for freedom fighters.

Lawyers for Afghanistan said the Afghan people were not delayed fairly.

The case is based on the testimony of an Afghan security official who identified the six as perpetrators.

But according to defense lawyers, the witness was not in court on Friday and did not appear to be tried in March as he was not available.

The prosecutors are said to have tortured the witness, Pashtun of the tribe, as all six are Hazara, a minority of whom are being tortured in Afghanistan.

Other witnesses to the case were police, firefighters who were summoned to September 2020 as well as workers from the European Asylum Service and non-governmental organizations working in the camp.

Built in 2013 to accommodate about 3,000 people, the Moria camp was filled in 2015 as more and more people began arriving on small boats from Turkey.

About 13,000 asylum seekers, among them families with children, pregnant women and the disabled have to sleep in public for a week after the camp was destroyed by fire.

Officials have since set up temporary camp in Lesbos with a population of about 6,000.

The EU has provided $ 336m for the construction of a new camp in Lesbos, as well as similar facilities on the islands of Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros.

About 10,000 people seeking refuge live on five Aegean islands, many of them hoping to live elsewhere in the EU.

The immigrant carries his luggage following the fire to the Moria camp [File: Reuters]