Cork aid worker could get 25 years in prison

A humanitarian volunteer from Ireland who was arrested on suspicion of human trafficking in Greece last year remains in legal limbo and still faces a possible prison sentence of 25 years.

Sean Binder, 25, from Doughcloyne in Cork city, received bail in Greece this time last year and had an emotional reunion with his mother Fanny at Dublin Airport. No trial date has been fixed.

Mr Binder, who is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and London School of Economics, had travelled to Lesbos in 2017 to assist refugees caught in the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean.

He says his aim was to obtain hands-on experience, having studied human rights and crisis in conflict areas at an academic level.

Mr Binder and three other NGO volunteers were arrested in summer 2018 in a situation which was a “bolt from the blue” for the Emergency Response Centre International worker.

In an interview with France 24, Mr Binder said while he is on bail he is still facing charges of facilitation, smuggling, being part of a criminal organisation, money laundering, fraud and even espionage.

“We face 25 years in prison. For me what was so surprising was that we had been so co operative with the authorities,” said German-born Mr Binder, who moved to Ireland when he was five.

“But I think the important thing is that there is nothing special about we did. It wasn’t criminal. It wasn’t heroic. It was just providing the basic medical care to people.

“We are allowing the criminalisation of humanitarian action on a chronic level. So right now it is a state of limbo. I am very confident that we will not be found guilty.

“But the point is not that we are not going to be found guilty. It is enough that this is a case which is extremely costly for us, it takes such a long time and it has a chilling effect.”

Mr Binder said on the shoreline where there were three or four civilian search and rescue organisations there are now zero.

“The sum total of the response and the view of the humanitarian actions as criminal is to cause more people to drown,” he said.

The International Relations Graduate spent three and half months in a Greek jail last year after he was accused of helping illegal migrants enter the country.

Mr Binder travelled to Greece with search and rescue and diving training under his belt so he was well equipped to help with the humanitarian efforts.

“I was co ordinating the search and rescue efforts for about a year,” he said.

I remember standing shoulder to shoulder with police officers responding to boats coming in. Very co-operatively. It [the arrest] took us by surprise.

“Civilian search and rescue is so fundamentally important.”

Mr Binder spoke out agains the criminalisation of humanitarianism.

“There is a shadow being cast over it by these allegations,” he said.

“If we lose humanitarians people will suffer. I would argue that providing help is a European value.”

Amnesty International in Ireland called for the charges to be dropped.

Kondylia Gougou, Amnesty International’s Greece researcher, said the fact that the volunteer workers “still face absurd charges and potentially long prison sentences is an outrage.

"These baseless charges should be dropped.”