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Two dozen aid workers, who had faced up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of smuggling migrants into Greece<\/a>, have been acquitted by a court on Lesbos.<\/p>\n The verdict was met with cheers, tears and cries of jubilation as the presiding judge announced the words that would end a seven-year legal ordeal for the humanitarians. All 24 had engaged in rescue work on the Aegean island at the height of the refugee crisis.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took 2,897 days for the obvious to be delivered by the justice system,\u201d said Zacharias Kesses, the lawyer who represented six of the defendants. \u201cToday, the three-member felony court of appeal of the North Aegean delivered a courageous judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n The European parliament had described the prosecutions as \u201cthe largest case of the criminalisation of solidarity in Europe\u201d and proceedings had been closely watched internationally.<\/p>\n Rights groups had spoken of a test-case moment for the treatment of humanitarians across the continent when tolerance for aid work has waned as migrant policies have hardened. Greece \u2013 a frontier state \u2013 has for years been accused of forcibly expelling migrants from its land and sea borders, with pushbacks<\/a> especially prevalent in the Aegean. The centre-right government of the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has called the policies \u201cstrict but fair\u201d although it has denied the expulsions.<\/p>\n Ahead of Thursday\u2019s court proceedings \u2013 resuming six weeks after the criminal trial began<\/a> in Mytilene \u2013 Human Rights Watch called the case a \u201cperverse misrepresentation of life-saving humanitarian work\u201d. It had urged Greek authorities to drop the \u201cbaseless\u201d charges.<\/p>\n \u201cThe acquittals are a vindication for the defendants but are also bittersweet,\u201d said Eva Cosse, a senior researcher in the group\u2019s Europe and Central Asia division. \u201cThese abusive prosecutions have virtually shut down lifesaving work even as people continue to drown in the Aegean. The Greek authorities should stop criminalising solidarity, end pushbacks and prioritise saving lives.\u201d<\/p>\n The defendants included Sara Mardini, the Syrian refugee<\/a> immortalised in the Netflix movie The Swimmers, and Sean Binder, a German-born Irishman who, like Mardini, spent 100 days behind bars after his arraignment in 2018. At the time of their arrests they ranged in age, with most of the aid workers in their 20s and 30s but some in their early 70s.<\/p>\n