[Julien Warnand, Pool via AP, File]
Let’s clarify some things, so that the government can understand them. According to its founding law 2477/1997, the Greek Ombudsman “has the mission of mediating between citizens and public services, local government organizations, public legal entities and public utility companies… for the protection of citizens’ rights, the fight against maladministration and the observance of legality.”
It is not its job to hunt down migrant smugglers, nor to make small talk about them. By law, the Ombudsman should not be bothered with how discussions on migration are going. The independent authority has only one job: to check whether state entities are doing their job properly “to protect citizen rights, combat maladministration and uphold the rule of law.”
Therefore, the statement by the Greek Ministry of Shipping on February 4 that the Ombudsman’s report regarding the deadly 2023 Pylos shipwreck “objectively attempts to shift the discussion from the criminal networks of the [migrant] smugglers to the Coast Guard officers, who fight day and night to protect the country,” is particularly shocking.
Of course there are “criminal networks of smugglers,” but it is the job of Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis to combat them and not of Greek Ombudsman Andreas Pottakis. The latter’s duty was to investigate the “eight senior officers of the Hellenic Coast Guard, regarding their knowledge and disregard of the risk to the life, health and physical integrity of the foreign nationals on board the fishing vessel Adriana,” as it said in its report. He investigated them and the report contradicts the other cover-up attempted by the government. Eight officers “are considered subject to investigation for deadly exposure, as well as for exposure to danger of the life, health and physical integrity of the persons on board the fishing vessel Adriana, under Article 306 of the Criminal Code.”
EU border agency Frontex had reached the same conclusion last year when it published its own report on February 1: “The Greek authorities appeared to have delayed the declaration of [search and rescue] operation until the moment of the shipwreck when it was no longer possible to rescue all the people on board, deployed insufficient and inappropriate resources considering the number of persons aboard Adriana, and failed to make use of the resources offered by Frontex.”
There is much more to say on this issue, but we must note that it was the socialist government of former premier Costas Simitis who established the Ombudsman. We mention this because many tears were shed at his funeral last month. It would be a shame if they were in vain…
