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How Frontex boss Fabrice Leggeri deceived the public

2020-11-27T21:50:39.045Z


The European Border Protection Agency was involved in pushbacks in the Aegean Sea several times: Refugees were dragged out of EU waters, and officials observed this or were even involved. Frontex boss Leggeri is now under pressure from internal documents.


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Refugee boat in the Aegean Sea

Photo: Petros Giannakouris / DPA

Whenever Fabrice Leggeri, the director of the European border protection agency Frontex, was asked publicly in the past weeks and months about the illegal refusals of refugees from Greece to Turkey, he had the same answer ready: knowledge about so-called pushbacks is based exclusively on media reports.

His agency has no knowledge of its own.

In October, SPIEGEL, together with the media platforms Lighthouse Reports, Bellingcat, the ARD magazine “Report Mainz” and the Japanese television broadcaster tv Asahi, revealed that Frontex had been involved in at least six pushbacks in the vicinity and in at least one itself since April. 

Leggeri was aware of at least one illegal pushback

Leggeri says he has no information on this.

Initial investigations had shown that there was no evidence that Frontex was involved in pushbacks in the Aegean, he claimed in a letter to the EU Commission on November 11th.

In a newspaper interview shortly before, he had even gone a step further.

The Greek government has dispelled his doubts about possible pushbacks, he said.

An internal Frontex document that SPIEGEL has now shows that this is not true.

Leggeri was therefore aware of at least one illegal pushback in the Aegean Sea - from May 8th at the latest.

In the so-called "Serious Incident Report" with the number 11095, which is part of the document, Frontex officials themselves recorded how around 30 refugees illegally moved from Greek to Turkish waters by Greek border guards on the night of April 18-19 were towed.

A Frontex reconnaissance aircraft observed the process from the air near the island of Lesbos.

According to the report, Greek authorities repeatedly asked Frontex officials to leave the scene, but they did not.

And so the police officers were able to document the pushback in detail. 

The refugees were first heaved from their boat into a ship of the Greek coast guard, then, at 02:37 a.m., into a rubber dinghy without a motor - and finally into Turkish waters.

The Turkish coast guard later came to their aid.

The Frontex officials sent several pictures of the event to the headquarters in Warsaw.

The description of the course of events coincides with cases of other pushbacks in the Aegean, which SPIEGEL has reconstructed.

The Frontex document shows that Leggeri was informed of the crime by 8 May at the latest.

Because then he wrote to the Greek government on the matter. 

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Frontex boss Leggeri

Photo: FLORION GOGA / REUTERS

Leggeri failed, however, to give the process a »Category 4« status, which describes violations of fundamental rights or the protection requirement.

In contrast to the Frontex statutes, he did not inform his fundamental rights officer about the case for a long time.

Everything indicates that Leggeri wanted to cover up the crime that his own agency had observed, or at least did not want to make a big issue of it.

In July he had to justify himself to the European Parliament because of the pushbacks.

He never mentioned the April incident to MPs.

It was only weeks later that he wrote nebulously in an internal letter to the committee about an "incident" that the Greek authorities were already investigating and that Frontex could not comment on any further.

Although the Frontex boss exchanged views on the incident with the Greek Minister of Maritime Affairs and the Greek Coast Guard chief on August 6, this had no consequences either.

It was not until September 16 that Leggeri informed his fundamental rights officer about the Serious Incident Report 11095. The case had already been filed.   

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Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2020-11-27

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