Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is preserved with care for historical and informational reading.

By final order no. 1795/2012 of the Judicial Council of the Athens Court of Misdemeanors, Georgian migrants, both legalized and undocumented, were referred to trial before the Three-Member Court of Appeal of Athens for felonies, on charges of forming a criminal organization whose purpose was the commission of the felony of aggravated theft and the removal from the possession of an unknown number of persons, victims, of movable things belonging to others.

Specifically, by the order, issued after completion of the ordinary investigation, the defendants, the alleged perpetrators, were referred to trial because, as stated in it, acting jointly, after a common decision and with common intent, together with other unknown persons, they formed and remained integrated as members in a structured group with continuous activity and organization, consisting of more than three persons, which intended to commit the felony of aggravated theft. More specifically, according to the operative part of the order, in Attica and at a time not precisely determined, but in any event up to 17.06.2011, when the defendants were arrested, they formed and remained integrated as members in a structured group with continuous activity, consisting of more than three persons, to which they subordinated their individual will in order to achieve its purposes, namely the commission of aggravated thefts, referred to verbatim in the order as "commission of aggravated instances of thefts", repeatedly and professionally. According to the order, at the times mentioned in it, the foreign defendants, Georgians, acting jointly, after a common decision and with common intent, together with other unknown persons, by several acts constituting continuation of the same offence and having joined together in order to commit thefts as persons committing thefts for the purpose of obtaining income, removed from the possession of an unknown number of persons movable things belonging to others with the purpose of unlawfully appropriating them [p. 28 of the order]. Among the defendants referred to trial, an unrelated young woman was also incriminated, the mother of two minor children, with serious health problems, with the only "element" being her origin from Georgia. In the prosecutor's proposal addressed to the judicial council, and incorporated into the text of the order, no evidence whatsoever is mentioned against the young woman that would justify her referral to trial together with the other defendants, her compatriots, and, even more, the proposal does not justify her imprisonment for an entire year, from 17.06.2011 until now, May 2012. However, because of offences against property, which are also committed by foreigners, by so-called "illegal migrants", demonstrably innocent persons are prosecuted, imprisoned and convicted, punished for acts they did not commit. This conduct by state organs is not justified and is prohibited under the principles of the so-called Rule of Law. This is what happened in the present case as well, with the referral of the unrelated Georgian mother without evidence, without serious or other true proof, and without respect for the presumption of innocence, which continues to be systematically violated, without consequences, by those armed with judicial and state power, investigators, judges, prosecutors and police officers. Although orders must include, according to the constitutional requirement, special and detailed, that is, persuasive and very serious, reasoning when they refer an accused person before the criminal court, no such reasoning can be detected in this order with regard to the referral of the unrelated Georgian woman, whose repeated requests were ignored, relying on the lack of evidence of her guilt, her status as the mother of two minor children, her financial and social weakness and her very serious illness, for her immediate release, while her pretrial detention was callously and unlawfully maintained, without trial and without reason. In this case too, the judgment was based mainly on the origin of the unjustifiably imprisoned woman, in disregard of the law, which permits deprivation of the accused person's liberty only in exceptional and extreme cases. In our country, suffering under the generalized crisis, those exercising state power must be compelled to respect the laws. The demonstrably innocent and unrelated, the weak, the young, the ill and the disadvantaged, must not be prosecuted and imprisoned, but only those who are truly guilty.