The European court of human rights has ruled that Greece violated a Syrian refugee’s right to life when coastguards fired more than a dozen rounds at the people smugglers’ boat he was on nearly a decade ago.
The Strasbourg-based court ordered Greece to pay €80,000 (about £68,000) in damages to the wife and two children of Belal Tello, who was shot in the head as Greek coastguards attempted to halt the boat he was travelling in. Tello died in 2015, after months in hospital.
In a ruling published on Tuesday, the court said the coastguards “had not exercised the necessary vigilance in minimising any risk to life”.
It linked their actions to Greece’s failure to put in place regulations on the use of potentially lethal force during coastguard operations. “The coastguards had thus used excessive force in the context of unclear regulations on the use of firearms,” the court said.
The ruling traces back to September 2014, when coastguards ordered a motorboat near the eastern Aegean island of Pserimos to stop. The vessel, which was carrying 14 people across the narrow strip of sea between Turkey and Greece’s Aegean islands, instead began launching into what the court described as “dangerous manoeuvres”, colliding with the coastguard patrol boat on “two or three occasions”.
The coastguard fired seven warning shots and 13 shots at the outboard motor, the court said, citing a report drawn up on the day of the incident. The court described the practice of firing at the engine of a moving vessel as “extremely dangerous” given the precision needed. “In consequence, the 13 gunshots necessarily posed a risk to the motorboat’s passengers,” it noted.
Two Syrians on the boat were seriously injured; one had been struck in the shoulder and the other, Tello, was shot in the head. A court in Greece later convicted two Turkish nationals on charges of people smuggling in relation to the incident.
Tello remained in a Greek hospital for six months. He was later moved to Sweden, where his wife and children were living, where he continued to receive treatment. He died in December 2015.
An investigation by Greek authorities included “numerous shortcomings … which had rendered the investigation inadequate”, the court said.
As such, Greece had failed to show that the use of force had been “absolutely necessary”, it said. The ruling described the level of force used as “clearly disproportionate”.
The court’s decision was welcomed by Refugee Support Aegean, one of the groups that helped to file the legal challenge. The case “demonstrates yet again well-documented, systemic deficiencies in the planning and implementation of coastguard operations and in the investigation of human rights violations at sea”, it said.
