Irish Examiner view: The stuff of a Le Carré spy novel

Humanitarian aid worker Sean Binder faces absurd charges, including espionage

Sean Binder outside the court of Mytilene in the island of Lesbos on Thursday. Picture: Manolis Lagoutaris /AFP via Getty Images

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is a famous spy novel, penned by the British author John le Carré and published in 1963. It depicts Alec Leamas, an MI5 agent, being sent to East Germany to pose as a defector, in order to gain information about colleagues who had been captured there.

The pity of it is that le Carré died last year, because, as a writer who liked to exemplify the wildly unreasonable characteristics of the Cold War, he would have been perfect to illustrate the absurdity of the espionage charges (among others) that Sean Binder, a humanitarian aid worker from Co Kerry, is facing.

A German citizen who grew up in Castlegregory, Mr Binder was arrested on the Greek island of Lesbos after several months’ service as a volunteer for an NGO assisting refugees and migrants. That was on August 21, 2018. 

The trained maritime search and rescuer, who grew up between Co Cork and Co Kerry, before graduating from Trinity College and the London School of Economics, is charged with several offences, including formation and membership of a criminal organisation, facilitation of illegal entry, infringement of State secrets, possession of a radio without a licence, money laundering, espionage, and forgery. 

It would be hilarious if it were not so serious.

Mr Binder is one of 24 people charged in connection with their humanitarian work. He denies all charges. He was arrested while volunteering for an NGO, Emergency Response Centre International.

Amnesty International has said the Greek authorities are making an example of humanitarian workers, who, it said, were simply trying to help refugees.

Law graduate Mr Binder was arrested alongside 24 other volunteers. He faces 25 years in prison for charges related to a period in 2017 and 2018 when he was volunteering on search-and-rescue missions for Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI), a Greek non-profit organisation that provides emergency response and humanitarian aid. 

Pre-trial prison

Seán spent 106 days in pre-trial prison, before being allowed to post €5,000 bail and return to his home in Co Cork.

As he told the Irish Examiner’s political correspondent, Aoife Moore: “Maritime convention calls on us to search and rescue, the EU Convention on Human Rights calls us to honour the right to life, to facilitate the right to seek asylum."

It’s very frustrating to now face prison because of that.

It is more than frustrating; it is appalling and should not be tolerated by the Irish Government or EU leaders.

The Greek tactic has nothing to do with justice. It is clearly designed to dissuade NGOs from assisting migrants. 

If what Mr Binder and his colleagues did is deemed illegal, then everyone on board the Irish naval vessel LÉ Eithne should be charged as well, for rescuing more than 1,000 migrants in the Mediterranean as part of the EU-led Operation Sophia.

Let us hope that justice will prevail and that Mr Binder does not fall victim to a Greek tragedy, a play in which the protagonist, usually a person of importance and outstanding personal qualities, suffers a spectacular fall from grace.