A group of British plane-spotters held in Greece on suspicion of
spying lost their legal bid for freedom today.
The 12 Britons, detained on November 8 in the south eastern town
of Kalamata, remained in custody after experts from the Greek air
force examined intelligence reports on photographs and notebooks
belonging to them.
A lawyer for the group, who had hoped that charges might be
reduced or dropped altogether, said there was bad news from the
report.
Yannis Zacharias said: "It seems that the experts from the Air
Force, in their report, produced findings that not only support the
existing charges, but have led the investigating judge to prepare to
bring further charges against these people."
A new charge would be trespass at an airfield which no civilian
could approach, he said.
They would be brought back before the judge either at the end of
this week or next Monday, he said. Mr Zacharias suggested that their
defence should be "individualised".
"I believe the majority of these people had nothing to do with
the incidents," he said.
The 11 British and two Dutch men are being held in a prison in
Nafplion, 80 miles from Athens. One British woman is in the
Korydallos high security prison in the capitals suburbs - the only
one in the area with a womens wing.
They were all initially accused of taking photographs of a
military air base, but the charges were increased to full-blown
espionage after the discovery of notebooks allegedly containing
details of two other airfields, including a Nato base at Araxos in
southern Greece.
They all deny taking photographs inside a restricted military
zone, which carries a maximum 20-year jail sentence in Greece, and
is treated harshly because of the countrys tense military situation
with Turkey.
The judge yesterday deferred his decision for 24 hours while
awaiting the experts report.
Mr Zacharias said yesterday he understood the judge was not
prepared to drop the charges as there appeared to be some evidence
against the plane-spotters. The groups lawyers have faced
difficulties explaining plane-spotting to the court. Mr Zacharias
said it was "not a well-known hobby in Greece".
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We in close touch with the
lawyer, and will be discussing with him the way the case is likely
to develop.We do understand that new charges may be brought against
members of the party. We are also in close touch with the
detainees."
