Greek Coastguard Treatment Of Migrants Illegal, Says Ex-Officer

A former Greek coastguard officer has described as "obviously illegal" the actions of colleagues who abandoned nine migrants at sea in one of 15 alleged illegal pushbacks from Greek islands or territorial waters that reportedly killed dozens of people.

- Jon Henley

In an interview with the BBC, Dimitris Baltakos, the Greek coastguard's former head of special operations, refused to speculate about footage the broadcaster showed him, after denying the coastguard would ever be told to do anything illegal.

But during a break he was recorded by a BBC camera telling someone out of shot, in Greek: "It's very clear, isn't it? It's not nuclear physics. I don't know why they did it in broad daylight... It's obviously illegal. It's an international crime."

The footage, shot by the Austrian activist Fayad Mulla and first published by the New York Times, showed 12 people, including women and babies, being led onboard a Greek coastguard boat, and then abandoned and left to drift on a raft.