Iranian refugee hopes to be acquitted in Greece smuggling appeal trial

Activists and legal experts say Homayoun Sabetara was unfairly imprisoned in 2022.

Athens, Greece – It was April 2022 when Homayoun Sabetara finally told his daughters he was in a Greek jail cell.

Sabetara, an Iranian national, had been arrested in August 2021 in Thessaloniki after driving a vehicle across the Turkish-Greek border.

Sabetara says he was coerced into driving it into Greece and transporting the seven other people found inside. In September 2022, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for smuggling in a trial that campaigners have said was unfair and Sabetara did not fully understand.

His daughter Mahtab Sabetara is now focussed on raising awareness for an appeal trial that starts on Monday in Thessaloniki and calling attention to the plight of other asylum seekers apparently in the same position.

“I found it quite shocking to go through this myself and figure out that this is the destiny of many people who are now in prison because of the same allegations,” Mahtab Sabetara told Al Jazeera over the phone from Germany, where she lives.