Court: No racist motive in act of ‘arresting’ migrants

Three men who were put on trial on charges that they locked 13 refugees and migrants in a transport trailer during the disastrous fires in Evros in northeastern Greece last September, and filmed them, accusing them of being arsonists, have been released. The three men had been in custody since last September.

The Thrace Criminal Court of Appeal reduced the basic felony charge of racially motivated kidnapping to illegal detention, which is prosecuted as a misdemeanor. It accepted that the act was not committed with racist motives, while acquitting the defendants of a number of other misdemeanors, such as exposure, incitement to commit violence, illegal carrying of weapons etc.

The court handed two defendants a five-year suspended sentence on condition they pay a fine. The defendant who made the video in question received an additional three-month suspended sentence for...