A Turkish judge arrived on the island of Chios on Tuesday morning with a boat carrying Syrian refugees. Together with the other co-passengers, the 50-year-old man was arrested by Greek authorities for illegally entering the country.
Upon his arrest, the man showed to authorities documents confirming his identity and work capacity and said he wanted political asylum claiming that he is been persecuted by the Erdogan regime.
The smugglers boat left Tuesday dawn the Turkish coast south of the Cesme area, just a couple of nautical miles opposite of Chios. The boat was detected around 6 o’clock in the morning by the Greek Coast Guard in the sea area off Agia Eleni.
According to local media PolitisChios.gr, information indicates that the Turkish judge will soon be transferred to Athens where his request will be examined.
UPDATE: According to another local media website astraparis.gr, the Turkish asylum seekers is a prosecutor and not a judge. Furthermore, he was taken to the court on charges to have illegally entered Greece and was fined with “one month imprisonment on three-year suspension”. He appeared in court without lawyer, but he used a translator.
He told the judge that he has been hiding from the first days of the coup attempt, isolated even from his family. Furthermore, he had a Green passport (which is common for civil servants in Turkey and the holders do not need a visa for EU), but that he was afraid to use it the legal way. Allegedly a friend adviced him to use the illegal way to come to Greece. He admitted that he paid money to the smuggler and he went on board with six Syrian refugees.
Greek intelligence EYP has already questioned him.
It is not the first Turkish civil servant seeking asylum in Greece after the failed coup attempt of July 15th. A family of academics and three businessmen fled to Greece four days ago, while 8 Turkish Air Force officers had fled to Greece with a helicopter right after the coup attempt. Their asylum request procedure is running.
LOLOL. A Turkish judge fleeing Turkey, but the country is perfectly safe for all asylum-seekers to be returned to. When is the EU going to deal with any sort of reality? whether it’s refugees or the eurozone crisis, they insist on keeping their heads buried in the sand. [Sand provided free, courtesy of Schaueble and Merkel].
This will ruin the lame propaganda-tales that Turkey has influence on refugee-traffic or that Turkey is even piloting it, there are just too many caves and lonely beaches, not to mention that Turkey’s real interest can never be visa-free travel as they can’t steal away all passports from their citizens.