An independent investigation has recommended disciplinary charges against eight coastguard officers over a 2023 migrant shipwreck in Pylos off Greece, one of the deadliest maritime disasters in recent European history.
Greek ombudsman Andreas Pottakis set up an independent investigation into the shipwreck that killed hundreds, after the Hellenic Coastguard refused to conduct an internal disciplinary investigation, despite pressure from Frontex, EU’s border protection agency.
According to the 158-page report, published on Monday, February 3, there are clear indications that during the 2023 June incident, Greek authorities knowingly exposed hundreds of migrants aboard the fishing vessel Adriana to life-threatening conditions. Ultimately, the boat capsized off the region of Pylos, in Greece’s Peloponnese, leaving 104 survivors. Eighty-two bodies were recovered following the shipwreck, but UNHCR (the UN’s refugee agency) and other migrant agencies have said as many as 650 people may have perished.
The report referred to a “series of serious and reprehensible omissions in the search and rescue duties on the part of senior officers of the Hellenic Coast Guard.” It also added that “there were clear indications of culpability” for eight senior officers of the coast guard under criminal law for their handling of the deadly incident.
The ombudsman also said that “crucial evidence” was withheld from its investigation, particularly in relation to allegations that the coastguard had towed the trawler while it was in distress.
“The actions and omissions of the implicated officers during the handling of the incident…constitute the offenses of deadly exposure to danger, as well as exposure to endangering the life, health and physical integrity of those on board the Adriana fishing vessel,” the ombudsman’s office said.
Coastguard authorities have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing over the handling of the case.
Pottakis’ report has been submitted to Greece’s shipping minister and to prosecutors at the Piraeus Maritime Court for further action.
Journalistic investigation of shipwreck revealed Greece knew the real smugglers
The Greek ombudsman’s report is not the first independent investigation that tried to shed light over the deadly Pylos shipwreck and the handling of the incident.
In December 2024, a journalistic investigation of the Pylos shipwreck has revealed that the authorities in Greece were aware that the nine people who they imprisoned for almost a year on charges relating to one of the Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwreck were not members of a human trafficking network.
According to the investigation by the NGO Solomon in co-operation with Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, El País, Die Tageszeitung and the New Humanitarian, the Egyptian authorities informed their Greek counterparts within a month that the nine Egyptian men who were arrested and imprisoned for their supposed involvement did not belong to the network that had organized the voyage.
The journalists revealed that the Greek authorities had initially been given a detailed list of the members of the network, which did not include the nine men, and then the results of Egyptian authorities’ investigations, which further confirmed it.
They also revealed that Egypt’s top official for combating migrant smuggling had informed the Egyptian Public Prosecutor’s Office that the ‘Pylos 9’—as the men came were dubbed by campaigners—were “victims” of the real smugglers, just like the other survivors.
Despite having this crucial information, the Greek authorities charged the men with people smuggling and kept them in pre-trial detention for almost a year until their case was dismissed a court in Kalamata in May 2024, the investigation claims.