An Egyptian fisherman who was facing a 4760-year sentence in a Greek prison has been sentenced to centuries in jail.
H. Elfallah was found guilty this week of ‘smuggling’ nearly 500 people from Libya to Greece in November 2022 — including 336 men, 10 women, 128 boys and nine girls — has ended up with a ‘lesser’ sentence of 280 years instead.
Activist groups have condemned the court’s decision, saying that the fisherman — who was one of the migrants aboard the ship but was also steering the vessel — is being used as a scapegoat by Greek authorities.
The 45-year-old Egyptian fisherman was found aboard the vessel when it arrived in the Crete port of Paleochora at the end of November 2022.
The boat, which had lost control in strong winds near the coast, sent a distress signal to the Greek Coast Guard, which brought the vessel ashore and rescued the people on board.
The dilapidated boat had set sail from Libya with the goal of reaching Italy’s shores, and the smuggled migrants on board were mostly from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, Sudan and Palestine.