Day 3#
Hearing postponed – police failed to question Iuventa defendant
Monitoring Report
The 29 October 2022 hearing lasted only a few minutes, as the judge announced the postponement of the hearing due to the pending questioning by police of Iuventa captain and defendant Dariush Beigui.
After the judge’s decision on 15 June 2022 to suspend the proceedings due to procedural defects, the case files of four defendants – three Iuventa crew members and the NGO Save the Children – were split from the others in the case. The prosecution had to properly notify the four defendants of the termination of the investigation phase, which it had previously failed to do. Following this notification, Iuventa defendant Dariush Beigui then exercised his right to request voluntary questioning by the police, to be included into the case file. However, the police failed to interrogate him on time, leading to the postponement of the 29 October hearing.
Later in the day on 29 October, Beigui presented himself before the police for voluntary questioning. The interrogation was halted prematurely, however, due to inadequate interpretation from Italian to German, which the police are required to provide Beigui during questioning. While the interpreter was a native German-speaker, registered with and having worked for the Court of Trapani in the past, she reportedly lacked the technical capacity to adequately interpret the interrogation, as she was unfamiliar with requisite legal and investigative terminology, including basic words like “defendant.” Beigui commented: “We are taking the risk of voluntary interrogation that could end up being used against us in order to finally move forward in this case. We believe that sea rescue is not a crime and, therefore, we have nothing to hide. But the quality of the interpretation was totally inadequate to clarify essential issues.” The interrogation is scheduled to resume with a new interpreter on 12 November 2022.
Inadequate translation and interpretation continue to pose significant fair trial concerns for the Iuventa defendants during the preliminary hearing phase of the case. Directive 2010/64/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of October 20, 2010 on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings, requires that key documents be translated to ensure that suspects are able to adequately exercise their defense rights and to protect the fairness of the proceedings. The Iuventa crew members and other defendants in this case face serious charges that could potentially result in 20 years in prison and high fines. Yet, to date, the entire case file containing the evidence against the Iuventa defendants has not been translated into German and the interpreters provided by the Court of Trapani – both at the first preliminary hearing on 17 May 2022 and Beigui’s questioning by police on 29 October 2022 – have been inadequate to ensure the defendants’ rights regarding effective participation in the proceedings. The Iuventa crew members’ defense lawyers have announced that they may ask the Court of Trapani to refer the issue to the European Court of Justice if it remains unresolved.
The next preliminary hearing is scheduled to take place at the Court of Trapani on 3 December 2022.
Judge unable to bring case forward. Prosecutor’s procedural errors interrupted proceedings again.
Prosecution repeatedly fails to provide basic fair trial rights
29.10.2022 Court of Trapani. In the biggest court case against crew members of the civilian sea rescue, the judge was finally unable to bring the case any step forward. Once again, due to procedural errors on the part of the public prosecutor’s office, the proceedings against the 21 accused, who face up to 20 years in prison for “aiding and abetting unauthorised entry”, had to be interrupted.
The defendants are four crew members of the rescue ship Iuventa and others from Doctors Without Borders and Save The Children. The Iuventa operated in the central Mediterranean between 2016 and 2017, rescuing more than 14,000 people from distress at sea. The ship remains under custody of the Italian authorities since its seizure on 2 August 2017.
Procedural irregularities, disregard for basic standards of a fair trial and even unlawful investigative methods have been already subject of many hearings since the beginning of the trial.
The right to a fair trial limits abuse by governments and state authorities. Fair trials are a cornerstone of the rule of law and thus of democracy. When fair trial rights are violated, there can be no democracy: in the case against the Iuventa-crew, we witnessed prejudicial publicity against the accused and a violation of their right to be presumed innocent, unreasonable length of investigations, illegal wire-tapping, an interpretation of the rules by prosecution that led to an attempt to prevent an accused from testifying during the investigation phase, and a denial of the right to translation of incriminating evidence.
States increasingly turn to criminalization to restrict life-saving search and rescue work, but also migration itself. Systemic failures to provide adequate translation undermine the defendants’ right to a a fair trail, in contravention of national and European law. The chilling effect this can have on civil society activities across borders is alarming, with even more devastating consequences for people on the move facing incomprehensible charges in foreign courts.
The case of the Iuventa-crew is not the exception but only one example. European courts are a wheel in the works of the racist border regime, sentencing thousands to prison who do not even understand what they are accused of. Every refused translation denies a fair trial.
If people don’t get a fair trial, the verdict is actually already set. People who dare to flee are made criminals for that reason alone. And if, despite all efforts to push them back, they manage to arrive in Europe alive, that is already suspicious enough to charge them and imprison them.We, on the other hand, have been accused of showing solidarity with people on the run. The strategy against us is clear: blockade our ship, intimidate our crew members, take as long as possible to detain us. In the meantime, people continue to die on Europe’s doorstep. But we will not be intimidated, neither in the court rooms nor at the borders of Europe! We remain in solidarity, we remain active and resistant.
Many are concerned about the impending Italian crackdown on all those who stand in solidarity with people on the move. Only recently Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, strongly condemned the judicial persecution of the Iuventa-crew and others in front of the UN General assembly:
My advice is to put a stop to jailing, smearing, deporting, kidnapping and physically attacking those who are helping refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.
SAME DAY - SAME ISSUES - SECOND TRY - SECOND FAIL
Questioning of defendant aborted due to disastrous interpretation
Trapani, 31 October 2022– 5 Years after the seizure of the iuventa ship, the trial was adjourned for the second time last Saturday, 29 October 2022, again due to mistakes by the prosecution. A subsequent voluntary questioning by the police of one of the iuventa defendants had to be aborted after minutes due to insufficient interpretation. The iuventa defendants asked to exercise their right to be interrogated voluntarily by the authorities on Saturday. For this, two high-ranking Coast Guard officers had travelled from Rome to Trapani.
Dariush Beigui, iuventa-crew: “We are taking the risk of a voluntary interrogation that may end up being used against us in order to finally move forward in this case. We believe that sea rescue and flight are not crimes and therefore we have nothing to hide.“
The interrogation however could not even enter the merits of the case and had to be stopped after a few minutes. The quality of the interpretation was completely inadequate to clarify essential questions in a criminal case that could potentially end with up to 20 years imprisoment and fines in the millions. The interpretator, although officially registered, lacked even basic legal vocabulary.
Nicola Canestrini, lawyer of the defence, stresses that this is not an isolated case: “The inability to grant a basic fair trial right such as interpretation is a systemic failure in the Italian legal system, affecting all foreign defendants. As this mistake is not even recognized at the EU level, we’ll ask the Trapani Court to send the case to the European Court of Justice.”
According to EULITA, the European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association, this is even a European-wide problem: “Ridiculous remuneration keeps qualified interpreters far away from courtrooms with the consequence that hearings have to be suspended, time is wasted and costs ramp up. It is not tolerable that Member States do not abide by the provisions on training and quality of legal interpreters and translators and, in the end, on the right of suspected and accused persons to understand the language of the criminal proceedings and be understood.
The defence had already criticised the quality of the translation in the court hearing earlier that day, to which the judge had replied: “We have looked everywhere but have not found anyone who wants to do this job, the pay is simply too bad”
While the iuventa defendants are in a privileged position that guarantees them strong legal support and the necessary means to make these mistakes public, this is not the case for the majority of foreign defendants. If a qualified interpreter can’t be found for an EU language such as German, the situation is even worse in cases where the accused speaks a non-European one.
Migrants in particular have been convicted in their thousands in Italy in recent years for “aiding and abetting unauthorised entry”, based on witness statements, signed documents and court hearings where adequate translations and interpreters have systematically not been provided.
Sascha Girke, iuventa: “This cannot be called fair trials! We understand the systematic failure to provide adequate translation as another facet of Fortress Europe that people are supposed to fail. We are launching a campaign today, calling on others to share their experiences under the hashtag #NoTranslationNoJustice in order to show the extent and manifold effects!”