European MPs seek investigation into death of Pakistani man by Greek fire

More than 100 MEPs have written to the European Commission president calling for a formal investigation into the death of a Pakistani man on Turkey's border with Greece in March.

A migrant reacts while others stand near a cloud of tear gas as they gather on the Turkish-Greek border near Turkey's Pazarkule border crossing with Greece's Kastanies, in Edirne, Turkey March 7, 2020.
Reuters

A migrant reacts while others stand near a cloud of tear gas as they gather on the Turkish-Greek border near Turkey's Pazarkule border crossing with Greece's Kastanies, in Edirne, Turkey March 7, 2020.

Over 100 members of the European Parliament have written to the European Commission president calling for a formal investigation into the death of a Pakistani man on Turkey's border with Greece in March, Sky News reported.

The letter, to Ursula von der Leyen, was prompted by a probe into the death of Muhammad Gulzar by open-source investigators at Bellingcat, Lighthouse Reports and Forensic Architecture, which was contributed to by Sky News and German magazine Der Spiegel.

The letter says: "We... expect that the European Commission takes its responsibility to undertake a thorough investigation to the findings revealed by the reconstruction, which give rise to grave concerns, and to report its findings to the European Parliament.

"If both the Greek government and the European Commission remain unresponsive to these allegations, we would witness an impunity which cannot be tolerated in a union that is based on respect for the rule of law."

A new report has found that Greek soldiers were likely responsible for the shooting of a migrant attempting to cross the Greek-Turkish border at the beginning of March 4 and who was later pronounced dead.

The man, Muhammad Gulzar, was one of seven people shot by Greek border forces, who were also using tear gas to repel migrants and refugees from passing through the heavily fortified no man’s land.

The report by Bellingcat, an investigative platform that uses open-source information, raises critical questions about what happened after Turkey announced in late February that it would no longer stop refugees from crossing the border into the EU, resulting in an exodus of migrants.

There were questions surrounding the veracity of official Greek and Turkish accounts of what happened that day, Nick Waters, the author of the report, told TRT World a day earlier.

"We believed it was important to understand what had happened."

Turkish authorities shortly after several migrants and refugees were wounded announced hat live rounds were used, which led to the death of a man, later identified as Gulzar.

At the time, the Greek government through its spokesperson denied allegations that they had wounded migrants and refugees attempting to cross the border.

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