The Untold

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The Untold: Life Interrupted

Life Interrupted

BBC Radio 4 - The Untold, Life Interrupted

Seán Binder's humanitarian work with refugees could bring about 20 years in a Greek prison

Seán Binder's life is totally normal except for the Damoclean threat of a possible 20-year sentence in a Greek jail for his humanitarian work on the Greek island of Lesbos in 2018.

You could say Seán Binder was doing the right thing in the right place at the wrong time. In 2018, he was part of the volunteer humanitarian effort on the island of Lesbos. Still a point of arrival for the inflatable dinghies & ramshackle craft packed with refugees & migrants & usually sent by smugglers. These overfilled craft would arrive on Lesbos & other Greek islands with people in various states of distress & need. 
A trained rescue diver, Sean was part of Emergency Response Centre International, a small humanitarian aid group that co-ordinated efforts with the Greek Coast Guard to prevent loss of life. Frequently for Seán, that would mean waiting on a dark beach to hand a blanket to an utter stranger but in February 2018 the local island police arrested Binder & a colleague & began an investigation that led first to 106 days in pre-trial detention & then a raft of unproven charges that include money laundering, espionage and assisting illegal smuggling networks. The case remains ongoing with the threat of up to 20 years imprisonment for Binder & his fellow accused. Meanwhile Seán has simply had get on with his life. The nightmare experience has been both transformative & chilling-it hangs over everything. Never quite happening, sometimes farcical yet always threatening to tug away at the normality of Sean's day to day existence. 
Producer Mark Burman

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