The Permanent Criminal Court of Famagusta imposed a three-year prison sentence yesterday on a Syrian national, who was found guilty of the crime of causing the death by negligence of a three-year-old girl also from Syria. The maximum penalty provided by law for the crime of causing death by negligence (Article 210 of the Criminal Code) is four years in prison or a fine of 4.250 euros. The case relates to the arrival of 60 Syrian migrants in the Republic by sea. The convicted person had assumed the duties of captain of the wooden boat that transported the Syrian migrants, which on January 18, 2024 sailed from Lebanon bound for Cyprus.
According to the facts of the case, the convicted person failed to ensure the safe navigation of the vessel, as well as safety measures for passengers against possible dangers at sea, since without possessing sufficient qualifications for such an undertaking, he undertook to navigate the overloaded boat with excessive passengers, without it meeting the minimum technical and construction specifications for offshore travel, without being equipped with the necessary navigation instruments, means of navigation, rescue and communication, without medicines, as well as without sufficient quantities of drinking water and food in proportion to the number of passengers, while at some point giving instructions to the passengers to discard the remaining quantity of bottled drinking water into the sea so as to eliminate any evidence that betrayed the country of departure of the boat, namely Lebanon.
Consequently, when the boat's engine failed during the journey, it sailed for six days on the high seas, unruly, helpless, exposed to adverse weather conditions, without direction, without food and drinking water for the passengers, most of whom began to drink their own urine as well as water from the sea. The tragic result was the death from dehydration of the three-year-old girl, who was accompanied by her mother. The little girl ended up at Makarios Hospital where she was airlifted after the boat was located by the Republic's authorities.
On behalf of the Attorney General of the Republic, the case was handled by Mr. Adamos Demosthenous, Attorney of the Republic.
