The former management of the border surveillance agency Frontex was aware of the illegal deportations of migrants to Greece and would even have co-financed deportations, according to a damning report from which Der Spiegel published excerpts on Thursday July 28.
Frontex was aware very early on of these illegal, sometimes brutal, returns of asylum seekers to Turkey, says this still confidential report from the European Office for the Fight against Fraud (Olaf), also consulted by the newspaper Le Monde and investigative site Lighthouse Reports.
“
Instead of preventing the
'
pushbacks
'
, former boss Fabrice Leggeri and his collaborators concealed them.
They lied to the European Parliament and concealed the fact that the agency supported certain refoulements with European taxpayers' money
,” summarizes the German magazine.
The conclusions of the investigators had caused the resignation of Fabrice Leggeri at the end of April.
The report reveals many details.
Like when the Greek coast guard, on August 5, 2020, dragged an inflatable boat with 30 migrants on board not towards Greece, but towards Turkey.
A patrolling Frontex plane filmed the scene.
Instead of approaching the Greek authorities, Frontex stopped patrolling planes over the Aegean Sea, on the grounds that it needed them elsewhere.
"Not to be a witness"
The investigators cite testimonies from Frontex collaborators implicating Fabrice Leggeri for having turned a blind eye to these illegal acts.
And they found a written note referring to the withdrawal of surveillance planes “
not to be witnesses
”.
Olaf also reports that at least six Greek boats, co-financed by Frontex, were allegedly involved in more than a dozen pushbacks between April and December 2020, which the former director has always rejected.
Asked about the publication, a spokeswoman for the European Commission stressed that "
a series of measures
" had already been put in place to settle the question of the governance of the agency, headed since the beginning of July by the Latvian Aija Kalnaja .
Read also Sinking of a migrant boat in 2014: Greece condemned by the ECHR
“
In terms of on-site work with the Greek authorities, there is progress on the ground
,” added Anitta Hipper, also pointing to “
a new bill to guarantee a solid monitoring system
” for the treatment of asylum seekers. in Greece.
In seven years at the head of Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri had supported the strengthening of the agency, which has been considerably beefed up and whose staff - with now armed agents - should reach 10,000 coast guards and border guards by 2027 .
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