Sarah Mardini

The trial of 24 aid workers and volunteers who participated in migrant rescue operations resumed Friday on an eastern Greek island, a prosecution that has drawn widespread criticism from international human rights groups.

A group of 24 aid workers and volunteers who participated in migrant rescue operations on an eastern Greek island went on trial Tuesday in a smuggling-related case widely criticized by human rights groups.

A Greek court was set to hear a smuggling-related criminal case Tuesday against a group of 24 aid workers and volunteers who participated in migrant rescue operations on an eastern Greek island.

The controversial trial of 24 aid workers who helped dozens of migrants and asylum seekers land safely on the shores of Lesvos at the peak of the refugee crisis is set to begin on the eastern Aegean island on Tuesday.

The trial in Mytilene, Lesvos, opened on Thursday of 24 aid workers from Greece and elsewhere accused of complicity in a criminal organization.

Sarah Mardini had notched up exactly three-and-a-half months in jail when she was released from the Greek capital's Korydallos Prison last week.

Four members of a nonprofit organization were being released on Wednesday from pretrial custody after being arrested on the island of Lesvos in August, accused of forming a criminal organization that smuggled migrants and refugees into Greece with the aim of bolstering donations.

The head of a Greek NGO involved in rescuing migrants at sea appeared before a prosecutor in Mytilene on Wednesday to face accusations of running a criminal network and aiding migrant smugglers.

The founder of Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI) arrived voluntarily by ferry in Lesvos and was detained on a pending arrest warrant.

Sarah Mardini, one of two Syrian sisters who saved over a dozen refugees in 2015 by pulling their sinking dinghy to Greece, has been arrested for alleged people smuggling, her lawyer said on Friday.