Rescue or Crime? Humanitarian aid workers on trial in Greece

"I expect nothing, but am prepared for anything," Dutch national Pieter Wittenberg told DW.

Wittenberg is one of 37 people on trial on the Greek island of Lesbos for helping refugees who were making the sea crossing from Turkey to Greece. Twenty-four people in the group are humanitarian aid workers.

The trial resumes in Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos, on January 15. It has become known as the "Mardini case" after one of the defendants, Syrian competitive swimmer and activist Sarah Mardini.

But this case is about more than just the actions of the 24 aid workers.

The trial, which is expected to conclude within days, has become a test case for how far European member states can go in prosecuting those involved in humanitarian work at their borders.

In 2015, Sarah Mardini fled Syria with her younger sister Yusra. The two crossed the Aegean by boat from Turkey to Lesbos.

When the overcrowded boat they were travelling in began to sink, the two sisters — then aged 19 and 17 and both competitive swimmers — jumped into the water and swam three hours to the Greek shore, pulling the boat behind them.

In doing so, they saved the lives of the other passengers. The sisters later continued their journey to Germany along the Balkan route, where they applied for asylum.

Their inspiring story captured the attention of the world and became the subject of both the Netflix movie "The Swimmers" and articles in leading fashion magazines that cast them as new role models.

In 2016, Sarah Mardini returned to Lesbos to work with the NGO Emergency Response Centre International (ERCI) to help other refugees. Two years later, she was arrested and charged with multiple crimes.

Five of the 24 humanitarian aid workers on trial, including Sarah Mardini, were placed in three-month pre-trial detention.

The charges against Mardini and the other defendants include espionage, assisting smuggling networks, membership of a criminal organization and money laundering. If found guilty, they face up to 20 years in prison.

The case ha been dubbed "the largest case of the criminalization of solidarity in Europe."

A conviction would deal a massive blow not only to humanitarian work, but also to fundamental human rights at a time when Europe and Greece are adopting increasingly restrictive migration policies.

Convictions in this case would set a legal precedent, both in Greece and in Europe.

It would also send out the message that helping refugees can lead to criminal charges and severe penalties, which in turn could deter volunteers and NGOs from making a constructive contribution to the refugee issue.

Mardini was arrested along with German-Irish national Sean Binder and Greek citizen Nassos Karakitsos on August 21, 2018 and sentenced to three months in prison before being released on bail in late 2018.

They were then charged with espionage, money laundering, illegal use of radio frequencies and document forgery.

In January 2023, the Misdemeanor Court of Mytilene dismissed these charges due to a lack of evidence and procedural errors.

Seven years after their arrest, the defense claims that doubts remain about the origin and legal nature of the initial evidence.

In early December 2025, the North Aegean Court of Appeals in Lesbos began hearings on additional charges, including human trafficking and membership of a criminal organization.

Talking to DW after the second day of the trial on December 5, Sean Binder said that "one would have thought that after months of investigation and seven years of delay, there would be a lot of evidence against us, a compelling argument as to why we might be guilty."

Binder went on to say that the witness for the prosecution, a coast guard officer, "undermined the very premise of the prosecution case, confirming that we cooperated with him."

Prosecutors argue that Mardini and others used humanitarian work as a cover for facilitating smuggling networks.

Her defense says there is no evidence of criminal intent and that her actions were aimed solely at saving lives in the open sea and providing assistance to people in distress.

Mardini's lawyer Zacharias Kesses also argues that the humanitarian mission that Sarah Mardini was involved in communicated with the Greek coastal authorities and exchanged information with them.

Lesbos-based journalist Anthi Pazianou has been covering the refugee crisis on Lesbos for a decade. She is very familiar with the situation on the island in 2015, when the number of Syrians arriving in Greece peaked.

Pazianou points out that humanitarian work was very important at the time due to a lack of institutional support for refugees and the fact that the island was overwhelmed by the influx of refugees arriving by sea.

"The volunteers organized the refugees' food and their documents and were in direct communication with the police," she told DW.

"Letting people die is a crime," says Michalis Bakas, a Lesbos-based activist. "It's crazy what's happening and that so many people have been suffering for so many years."

For the last seven years, human rights groups including Amnesty International have been following the case closely.

"The charges are baseless und should be dropped immediately," said Wies De Graeve, the executive director of the Belgium Flanders branch of Amnesty International.

"This trial should never have happened in the first place. We are very concerned. What we see is the criminalization of solidarity," he told DW.

Also speaking to DW, Amnesty International Greece's Christos Dimopoulos said that "this case highlights the general frame of how Greece and Europe are currently handling migration flows and creates a narrative about human rights that is anything but positive."

Sophia Koufoupoulou, an independent researcher on migration flows to Greece, has been monitoring the influx of refugees to Lesbos for over 20 years. According to Koufoupoulou, the narrative on migration has changed in Europe — and most particularly in Greece.

"When we were talking about solidarity and humanitarian aid in Germany and Greece in 2015, volunteer work was praised. We have now entered an era where the Greek Minister of Migration himself labels migrants in a way that is not appropriate for a supposedly center-right government," Koufoupoulou told DW.

The defense claims that neither the prosecutor nor the president of the Court of Appeals, who referred the case for trial, reviewed or assessed the case. It says that both failed to recognize the complete absence of evidence.

Kesses, Sarah Mardini's lawyer, told DW that "the case should not have reached the courtroom since it doesn't meet requirements. Most of it has already been decided in 2023."

He is also critical of the fact that the Greek judiciary failed to deal with the Mardini case quickly and effectively.

"We are entering the final phase of the trial and await with great interest the evaluation of all the evidence we have presented," Kesses told DW.

The defendants are also eager for the trial to conclude, as it has dragged on for eight years and has placed them under significant mental strain.

"We can't wait to come back on January 15 and 16 and finish with this nightmare, because it is a nightmare for us," defendant Nasos Karakitsos told DW.

Karakitsos stresses the importance of a positive outcome for humanitarian aid workers in general, saying that "it would be good — not only for us but for everyone that came to the islands and helped for all those years."

A verdict is anticipated on January 16 or 17. Whatever the outcome, legal experts say the ruling could shape how humanitarian work is conducted and policed at Europe's borders.