Three supervisors charged with shooting and wounding 29 immigrant workers on a strawberry farm in the Peloponnese of Greece, along with the fruit company’s owner, went before a magistrate on April 22 as the government said it would offer state protection to the victims.
The immigrants, many of them Bangladeshi and in the country unlawfully, were shot when they asked for six months back pay due them, officials said. The three men, aged 21, 27 and 39, are charged with numerous counts of attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, human trafficking and illegal possession and use of weapons by a state prosecutor.
The 57-year-old employer and owner of the Vangelatos SA fruit company, Nicos Vangelatos faced the magistrate as well, in the town of Amaliada. The lawyer of the 39-year-old said his client denied the charge and that he had been threatened by the workers, who the suspects said were armed with clubs.
The two other perpetrators’ lawyers deny the charge of attempted murder and argue that their clients were not responsible for the living conditions of the workers but didn’t explain why they shot them.
A separate case is pending against the 27-year-old for causing serious injury in August 2012 to an Egyptian worker who was demanding his wages. The foreman, who was sitting in a car, drove off while the laborer’s hand was trapped in the vehicle’s window, according to the Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia. The Peloponnesian town of Manolada has achieved notoriety in recent years for its brutal treatment of migrant farmhands.
Supreme Court prosecutor Ioannis Tentes, meanwhile, said that 35 of the migrant workers, including the 29 who were injured, would not be deported. Vangelatos, who was not at the site when the shooting occurred, has been charged as a moral accomplice to attempted manslaughter.
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