Court clears migrants of escaping custody
In a landmark decision, a misdemeanors court in Igoumenitsa, northwestern Greece, acquitted 17 undocumented immigrants of escaping custody after ruling that the conditions they were being held in contravened the migrants’ human rights.
The 17 were being kept in a coast guard holding cell in the port town because the police did not have anywhere to hold them.
The detainees overpowered their guards after a fire broke out in the cell but all were recaptured.
The court ruled that the migrants’ detention conditions breached three articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.
