Halt to appeal of Manolada ruling

The government’s request for the review of a European court ruling ordering Greece to pay some 600,000 euros in damages for failing to protect 42 migrant strawberry pickers who were shot at by their foreman in Manolada in the Peloponnese in 2013, will be revoked, according to the State Legal Council.

After the government’s appeal fuelled controversy, a council official told Kathimerini that it would be withdrawn “following more detailed consideration.” Later in the day, it emerged that Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis gave the order for the turnaround.

In its ruling in March, the Council of Europe’s Court of Human Rights deemed that the Bangladeshi workers had been victims of forced labor and that the Greek state had failed to protect them.

Kontonis had noted that leftist SYRIZA, then in opposition, had pointed to the injustices suffered by the migrant workers, but had been ignored.