Jailed Grek servicemen facing two year sentence by Turkish courts

According to SKAI television, Angelos Mitrotodis testified that "I did not intend to commit an offense," while Dimitris Kouklatzis said: "I repeat the same statement. I have nothing to say. There was no intention of committing an offense. "

However, according to the same source, concerns are raised by the reports of the Turkish prosecutor. The prosecutor has called for a continuation of the digital material examination, which may change the charge as the border violation was committed by soldiers who should have had knowledge of the area, which increases the probability of committing the crime. "The minimum sentence for this crime is at least two years and it is now appropriate to continue their detention."

Note that there has been no official charge of Turkish justice against the two Greek soldiers and what the Turkish prosecutor has said about continuing the examination of digital material is more like threats, of the sort "if we want to, we will charge the indictment."

Yet the prosecutor, yesterday, when considering the request for the release of the two Greek soldiers, raised the issue of "not having a permanent residence in Turkey, as well as being a citizen of a foreign country", and said "there are reasonable suspicions of escape." Despite the fact that the Greek side is making efforts to declare the permanent residence of the two military men in Turkey.

It should be noted that today's emergency regime is being lifted in Turkey, which would mean that those in prison without being charged, as in the case of the two Greek soldiers, can not be detained. On the one hand, this development raises hopes, but there are those who point out that the lifting of the state of emergency and what this entails in Turkey is relative.

Meeting of the two Greeks with the European ambassador

Meanwhile, a meeting with the two Greek soldiers was held on Monday by the head of the European Union Delegation to Turkey, Ambassador Christian Berger.

The Ambassador then contacted MEP Manolis Kefaloyiannis and informed him that after repeated attempts of several weeks he managed to obtain permission from the Turkish authorities to visit them in the prisons of Adrianople.

At the meeting that lasted for quite a while, the Ambassador found that the two officers are in good physical and mental condition despite the 4.5 months of their illegal detention in the highest security prisons. Angelos Mitrotodis and Dimitris Kouklatzis thanked him for his visit as well as for the solid support and solidarity of the European Union, the European officials and the European Institutions in the adventure that they are going through.

Tzanakopoulos: Turkey plays with the lives of our two prisoners of war

In the case of the two imprisoned soldiers in Adrianople, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos also spoke on TV ANT1.

As the government spokesman said, "Turkey in this case, which is a obvious case of human rights violation, seems to be working on terms that are not within legal limits," noting that he hoped to soon see Turkey take a turn on this issue.

"Obviously this issue is used by Erdogan to negotiate on other things and that is unacceptable, we can not play with human lives in the game of diplomatic antagonism, because then we are out of bounds and we are going into a field quite hostile," said the government spokesman.

Mr. Tzanakopoulos added that "we will continue to exhaust all the means of political pressure, diplomatic and legal possibilities, but it all depends on the Turkish Prosecutor's Office, which is dependent on the Turkish government in the country's system."

"After the election, Mr. Erdogan feels quite safe and this may mean that there may be a relaxation and I think the choice that will be made will be for a de-escalation of relations and that is where the issue of the two prisoners of war comes in," Mr Tzanakopoulos concluded.