{"id":288149,"date":"2026-01-16T20:59:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T20:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/288149\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:59:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T20:59:10","slug":"sean-binder-tells-of-enormous-relief-at-being-found-not-guilty-of-people-smuggling-in-greece-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/288149\/","title":{"rendered":"Se\u00e1n Binder tells of \u2018enormous relief\u2019 at being found not guilty of people smuggling in Greece \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Se\u00e1n Binder has described his acquittal on several serious charges in a Greek<\/a> court as \u201can enormous relief\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Binder, who was born in Germany<\/a> but raised in Co Kerry<\/a>, and 23 other humanitarians were found not guilty on Thursday of people smuggling, belonging to a criminal organisation and money laundering.<\/p>\n

He travelled to the Greek island of Lesbos in late 2017 to volunteer with the Emergency Response Centre, an NGO involved in search and rescue missions.<\/p>\n

In 2018, he and 23 other volunteers were charged with a series of offences. The trial was delayed on several occasions.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor seven years, we have had this threat of 20 years\u2019 imprisonment hang over our heads,\u201d Mr Binder said on Friday.<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9\u2019s Morning Ireland, he said \u201cthere wasn\u2019t a shred of evidence\u201d against him or the other volunteers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe foundation of the smuggling charge was that we did search and rescue. The accusation of spying was that we used WhatsApp. The fact that we were charged [with] money laundering stems from the fact that we raised money to buy laundry machines. It was farcical.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only real outcome of all of this is that it has stopped people from engaging in search and rescue. It has been enough to scare them away from the shoreline, and that\u2019s the point.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SeánSe\u00e1n Binder (second left), Pieter Wittenberg, Nasos Karakitsos and Sarah Mardini leave the courthouse in Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos on Thursday. Photograph: Manolis Lagoutaris\/AFP\/Getty <\/p>\n

The case was widely criticised by human rights groups<\/a>, who called on Greek authorities to drop the charges.<\/p>\n

Mr Binder, an experienced diver, explained the type of work he did with the NGO.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom midnight to 7am we had done something called a spotting shift \u2013 standing at a cliff face, just looking out and listening, listening for people\u2019s screams or little lights that would indicate there\u2019s a boat in distress, and if there was, we would go out to sea or provide medical assistance at the shoreline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Binder, who spent more than 100 days in pretrial detention, said his life has been \u201con pause\u201d since he was indicted. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have been unable to continue with my life in many respects, although when I went to prison and I met people who were even more adversely affected by the criminal justice system, it encouraged me to retrain as a barrister.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that while deciding to become a barrister \u201chas been a positive step\u201d, his indictment meant he has been unable to work or \u201csave to have children or a family\u201d. <\/p>\n

Despite the personal toll the situation has taken on him, he said the \u201cfar more important\u201d consequence is that fewer search and rescue operations are happening due to fear of prosecution. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople drown because there is less search and rescue happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0From the archive: \u2018No more bleeding hearts\u2019: Kerry-raised NGO worker among those on trial in GreeceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Binder thanked his family and friends, many of whom were in court on Thursday, and the wider Irish community for their \u201ctremendous\u201d support. <\/p>\n

He said he convinced his family to celebrate the verdict by swimming in the sea last night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey very, very reluctantly were swimming with me last night in the dark.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Se\u00e1n Binder has described his acquittal on several serious charges in a Greek court as \u201can enormous relief\u201d.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,12364,6,11,12,15,16,19614,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-288149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-greece","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-migrant-crisis","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115906790336824667","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}