Greek coastguard chief to be prosecuted over deadly migrant shipwreck

Four senior figures in the Greek coastguard, including its current commander, are to face criminal prosecution for negligent manslaughter in connection with a 2023 migrant boat disaster in which up to 650 people are thought to have drowned.

The fishing boat Adriana went down off the Greek coast near Pylos. Survivors told the BBC that the vessel capsized after coastguards made a botched attempt to tow it.

Greek authorities have always denied any wrongdoing over the shipwreck.

Now a prosecutor at the naval appeal court in Piraeus has recommended that the current head of the Hellenic coastguard, Vice Adm Tryfon Kontizas, and three other senior officers should go on trial.

Among the charges cited by the court of appeal are manslaughter by negligence in international waters but within Greece’s rescue zone, exposure by negligence with a legal obligation to rescue people that resulted in death and repeated exposure by omission of other people to danger.

The Adriana had left Libya for Italy in June 2023 and was monitored by a Greek patrol vessel for some 15 hours off Pylos before it went down. Some of the 104 survivors later revealed that a coastguard vessel had caused the boat to sink by towing the boat away too fast when the boat was unbalanced.

Although only 82 bodies were recovered, hundreds more people are believed to have died.

Prosecutors at the maritime court in Piraeus decided earlier this year that 17 members of the Greek coastguard should face charges, including the captain of the coastguard ship, the-then head of the coastguard Vice Adm Giorgos Alexandrakis and the supervisor of the national search and rescue centre.

However, they cleared Tryfon Kontizas and three other senior officers of blame. Vice Adm Kontizas had been appointed coastguard chief a few weeks before the court’s decision.

That decision not to prosecute the four officers was then challenged by lawyers for survivors and relatives of the victims.

Greece has always maintained it fully respects human rights and has rescued more than 250,000 people at sea in the past decade.