Court hands lengthy prison sentences to migrant trafficking ring

Three leading members of a migrant trafficking ring were handed prison sentences ranging from 36 to 290 years by a three-member appeals court in Thessaloniki on Monday.

Their activity was revealed after a car accident last April in the town of Iasmos, in the northeastern regional unit of Rhodopi, in which an Iranian migrant was killed.

The ringleader, a Georgian national, was sentenced to 290 years in prison and a Greek national received a 69-year sentence. A third member of the gang, a Moldavian, was handed a 36-year sentence which was added to an 85-year sentence he received from a separate court in Thrace as the driver in the fatal car accident in Iasmos.

According to the case file, the three suspects were involved in nine trafficking operations in which they illegally transferred migrants from Turkey to Thessaloniki and Athens from October 2016 to June 2017.

The lawyers of the defendants said their clients will serve a maximum of 25 years in prison.