Thursday, March 15, 2018

Jailed for helping others

A Hungarian court sentenced a Syrian-Cypriot man to seven years in prison for illegally crossing the border and for being an accomplice in "an act of terror" during clashes with police in September 2015. The retrial of the case is milder than the original 10-year sentence issued in 2016.

Ahmed Hamed was part of a group that crossed illegally into Hungary on Sept. 16, 2015 and also spoke to the crowd using a loudspeaker before hundreds of migrants forced open the border gate and police fired water cannon and teargas. As the holder of a Cypriot passport and therefore a citizen of the European Union, Hamed would be allowed to enter Hungary without a visa, but he was helping relatives and other Syrian citizens.

"We did not go to the border to cause problems," Hamed was quoted as saying. "Neither my culture, nor my religion would encourage that."

No comments: