Cheers in Greek court as humanitarian Sean Binder found not guilty after eight-year ordeal

A packed Greek court erupted in cheers on Thursday night as an Irish humanitarian was found not guilty of people smuggling, belonging to a criminal organisation and money laundering, almost eight years after the charges were first brought.

The trial of Sean Binder and 23 other humanitarians who had been volunteering to save refugees from drowning in the sea off Lesvos in Greece concluded on Thursday night at almost 8.20pm local time.

All defendants were found not guilty of all three charges. Had they been found guilty, they would have faced up to 20 years in prison.

Outside the court in Mytilene, confetti and champagne corks exploded as all 24 defendants and their supporters celebrated their acquittal.

But Seán Binder, who has close links to Cork, said that his emotions were mixed after the verdict.

“I feel so delighted that I don't spend the next 20 years in a Greek prison, but I also feel angry that we've had to wait for this long to have that confirmed,” he told The Echo.

“There is just no need to prosecute people for doing exactly what the European Union laws say we should be doing. It isn't controversial that search and rescue happens. It is a legal requirement that the European Union has imposed.

“So why prosecute European Union citizens when they do just that?

“Obviously it's great that we've been acquitted but it should never have gotten this far. People drown all the time on these islands and there are fewer and fewer people doing search and rescue. Not because we were convicted but because the prosecution ever started.

Sean, whose mother lives in Togher, and has lived in the city for a time, said that the charges had been spurious from the beginning, designed to deter humanitarians from operating on the island.

“And by stopping those search and rescue efforts, we have a deterrent at our shoreline and that causes people to drown," he said.

Although the State had taken the case against the humanitarians, which took some seven years to get to trial, the prosecutor told the court on Thursday evening that there were, in fact, no grounds for the offences.

Seán Binder’s lawyer Zac Kesses said that it had been 2,077 days since Mr Binder and his former colleagues were charged, hugely impacting their lives.

But those charges could easily have been dropped, he said.

One defendant spoke of lifting children’s cold, limp bodies from Lesvos’ beaches as a volunteer, not knowing if they were dead or alive.

She also saw people crushed to death on crowded boats, unable to help at the time or to subsequently erase those harrowing images.