Greece claims plane-spotters will get fair trial

Date: 14/02/02

By Martin Banks

A CIVIL liberties group has been assured that all of the plane-spotters arrested last year in Greece on spying charges will receive a fair trial.

The 14 EU citizens, who are alleged to have been taking photographs at a military air show, are currently free on bail but will soon have to return to Greece for their trial.

Fair Trials Abroad, the UK-based campaign group that has championed their cause, claims it has received written assurances from the Greek authorities that all will receive a fair hearing.

The group's director Stephen Jakobi said: 'Hopefully, the case will now be dealt with as soon as possible.'

The 12 Britons and two Dutch were arrested on 8 November last year while attending an air show at a military complex in the southern town of Kalamata.

Fair Trials Abroad, meanwhile, celebrates its tenth anniversary this week.

Jakobi marked the occasion by saying there has been no parallel for Greece's treatment of holidaymakers in the European Community in the last decade.

'No European citizen outside Greece has any respect for Greek justice,' he said, 'and much practical work on raising the judicial standards of Greece and other countries must be done before the mutual confidence upon which all else depends can be established.'

The group was recently bombarded with hate mail after Jakobi said the 350 Taliban and al-Qaeda detainees being held by the US at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba deserved a fair hearing.

He said that, at a time when the world was watching planeloads of prisoners being flown into Cuba, American justice would be forever judged on the treatment of these 'helpless' detainees.

A civil liberties group has been assured that all of the plane-spotters arrested on 8 November 2001 in Greece on spying charges will receive a fair trial.