Greek minister criticizes coastguards for forcing ‘smuggler’ to look at bodies of dead refugee children

Greece's shipping minister has criticized coastguards who forced an alleged smuggler to look at the bodies of three dead refugee children who died while trying to cross the Aegean.

"Clearly this is exaggerated behavior," Shipping Minister Thodoris Dritsas said in a statement late on Monday.

"The state and its officials should be cool-headed and professional against any detainee, even one accused of heinous crimes," Dritsas said.
On January 15, three refugee children drowned to death as a dinghy sank off the Greek island of Agathonisi near Turkey's Didim coast. 20 other people were rescued from the boat.

The captain of the refugee boat, 35 year-old Özkan A. of Turkish nationality, who reportedly admitted having no experience managing a boat prior to the incident and is a truck driver by profession, was "ordered" by Greek coastguards to look at the refugees' dead bodies, as a result of which the suspect burst into tears. The 35-year-old man was already reportedly being sought by Turkish police for smuggling refugees.

But the Greek minister criticized the coastguards' action saying, "We should all respect the presumption of innocence until one is irrevocably declared to be guilty," the minister said.

A prosecutor on the Greek island of Samos is to decide whether to press manslaughter charges against the alleged smuggler, who reportedly said that he had been forced by four men in Turkey to pilot the boat, and was not paid to undertake the job.

Convicted migrant smugglers face heavy sentences in Greece if convicted.

Related: Smuggler cries as police force him to look at dead refugee children's bodies