BackThe Ombudsman’s inquiry into the Pylos shipwreck reveals a series of serious and reprehensible omissions in the search and rescue duties on the part of senior officers of the Hellenic Coast Guard. The report finds that the actions and omissions of the implicated officers during the handling of the incident on 13 and 14 June 2023 constitute the offences of deadly exposure to danger, as well as exposure to endangering the life, health and physical integrity of those on board the Adriana fishing vessel, punishable under article 306 of the Criminal Code.
In November 2023, the Independent Authority decided to proceed with its own investigation, under the special competence of the National Mechanism for the Investigation of Arbitrary Incidents, following the explicit refusal of the Hellenic Coast Guard to launch an internal disciplinary inquiry, which the Authority had requested since June 2023 , after the tragic shipwreck of Pylos.
Having collected approximately 5,000 pages of evidence (including written responses from the services involved, journalistic research, an additional seventeen sworn testimonies, an expert report and an opinion requested by the Authority, as well as the case file forwarded by the Kalamata Appeals Prosecutor's Office) and the subsequent oral and written explanations from ten (10) senior officers of the Hellenic Coast Guard, to whom all of the collected material had been provided, the Ombudsman concluded a 148-page report on the fatal Pylos shipwreck.
The Independent Authority's report analyses in detail the events, acts and omissions of the Hellenic Coast Guard senior officers involved with reference to the provisions of the legal framework for the Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC), in particular in accordance with the International Convention on Search and Rescue (SAR), from the notification of an overloaded fishing vessel with - by estimate - approximately 750 migrants from the corresponding Coordination Center in Italy, at 11:00 a.m. on 13.06.2023, a fact verified by FRONTEX, until its sinking 15 hours later, the rescue of 104 survivors and the recovery of 82 bodies.
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Source: The Greek Ombudsman
