[ALBSA-Info] Planespotters

[Agron Alibali]

The New York Times 
April 28, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final 

Section 1; Page 4; Column 1; Foreign Desk 

Plane-Spotters Found Guilty In Greek Court In Secrets Case 

By WARREN HOGE 

LONDON, April 27 


A group of British tourists pursuing their hobby of plane-spotting, a pastime as peculiar to Britain and incomprehensible to some foreigners as playing cricket and drinking warm beer, found themselves convicted in a Greek court on Friday on charges of obtaining national secrets. 

Judge Potoula Fotopoulou in Kalamata, an olive-growing seaside town in southern Greece, showed no sympathy for their argument that they were taking part in an innocent sport. She found eight members of the group guilty of "illegally obtaining state secrets" and six others guilty of aiding them. The first eight defendants were sentenced to three years in jail and the six others to one-year suspended sentences. They were permitted to leave Greece, and they all returned home today. They could be called back for appeal hearings. 

"I didn't think this could happen in the 21st century in a European country," one of the men, Michael Bursell, 47, of Hull in northeastern England, said on hearing the verdict. 

Reactions in Britain included incredulity and outrage. 

Brian Jenkins, a Labor member of Parliament whose constituent Wayne Groves, 38, of Tamworth in Staffordshire, was among the guilty, said, "This is a farce, or rather a Greek tragedy." 

Plane-spotting and its humbler relative, train-spotting, attract thousands of devotees in Britain. Men and women can be seen at the ends of railroad station platforms with their notebooks and pencils or lined up like soccer spectators alongside landing-strip fences at major airports with their binoculars and listening devices, recording with deliberation and the occasional moment of jubilation the serial numbers and models of locomotives and aircraft. 

The 14 plane-spotters, 2 of whom are Dutch, were arrested in November at a military base air show to which they had been invited. They were originally charged with the more serious crime of espionage, which carries a 20-year sentence, and held in prison for five weeks. 

After a flurry of diplomatic exchanges between London and Athens, they were released on bail, and the charges were reduced to "obtaining national secrets." 

Before their arrests, the group had toured seven Greek air bases, two aircraft museums and a plane scrapyard. Greece bans photography of military installations, and officials there said suspicions were aroused that the visitors were collecting information for neighboring Turkey, Greece's historic enemy. 

They had returned this week to stand trial, confident that Britain and Greece, both members of the European Union and allies in NATO, would work out a face-saving way to end the encounter. 

"Greece was supposed to be the birthplace of democracy and justice," said Julie Wilson, wife of another defendant, Christopher Wilson, 46, from Gatwick in West Sussex. 

Downing Street said on Friday that Prime Minister Tony Blair was closely following the events. "The government has always believed that the response to this case has been disproportionate," a spokesman said. Nikos Papadakis, the spokesman for the Greek Embassy in London, countered, "By all accounts, it was a fair trial." 

Stephen Jakobi, director of Fair Trials Abroad, said the verdict could have wide repercussions. "I've forecast all along that if the Greeks got this one wrong," he said, "the shock waves would be felt throughout Europe."  

===

Independent on Sunday (London) 

April 28, 2002, Sunday 

NEWS; Pg. 11 

SPOTTERS SAY THEY WILL APPEAL TO EUROPEAN COURT 

Jm Paul Coppin: 'decision was made before court hearing' 



By James Morrison 

Twelve British plane-spotters convicted in Greece of spying charges returned home yesterday - and immediately vowed to clear their names. 

Arriving at Luton airport looking dazed and demoralised, they said that they were "horrified" and "devastated" by the judge's decision to sentence six of their number, along with two Dutchmen, to three years in jail. And they declared that they were prepared to take their case all the way to the European courts in pursuit of justice. Paul Coppin, the 45-year-old tour organiser, of Mildenhall, Suffolk, said: "Obviously we are going to appeal, and if we have to take it all the way to the European Court of Justice, then that is what we will do. Even our lawyer, who never seemed to stop talking, was left speechless when the verdict was read out." 

He added: "We're very angry with the way things went in court. We feel there's been a serious miscarriage of justice. I think the decision had been made before we went into court; our defence was very good." 

Mr Coppin said that the group would be urging the British Government to put political pressure on Greek ministers to overturn the guilty verdicts. 

His wife, Lesley, 51, who was one of six plane-spotters to receive a one-year suspended sentence, said: "We have all been left completely devastated by what has happened, and to be quite honest, if I never go to Greece again, or even hear the word, I will be quite happy." 

The plane-spotters were arrested on suspicion of espionage during an air show held at the Kalamata air base, in southern Greece, last November. They were held in custody for several weeks before being released on pounds 9,000 bail, on condition that they return at a later date to face charges of gathering secret information. 

While the Greek military alleged that aircraft serial numbers contained in notes taken by members of the group constituted classified information, trial witnesses argued that most of the details were already available in the public domain. 

==
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) April 28, 2002, Sunday 
April 28, 2002, Sunday 

Pg. 24 

 The Greeks don't have a word for plane-crazy 

 By Kevin Myers 


Seldom can a collision of cultures produce such a bizarre outcome as the imprisonment for up three years by a court in Greece of the eight British and Dutch plane-spotters. There is almost no meeting between the minds of the accused and the accusers. On the one hand, from a searing climate you have a people who have been in various states of war with their neighbour for the best part of two centuries; and on the other hand you have a group of anoraks from wet and foggy meridians snooping around militarily sensitive air-bases, taking notes. 

This latter activity is not merely unknown in Greece. It is incomprehensible. And not even the past-time itself, but the very concept to which it belongs is beyond a Greek's understanding. I don't know the Greek for "hobby", but I wager that if it does exist, it is the same as the French and German words for hobby, which are both "hobby". For the very notion of a "hobby", like anorak, belongs almost uniquely to males from a sodden island in the North Sea; trying to describe it to a woman judge in a Mediterranean culture is rather like explaining interplanetary travel to an oyster. The subject of plane-spotting was not the only cultural difference. Throughout the trial in Kalamata, witnesses and lawyers shouted at one another, mobile phones rang and were freely and volubly answered, and in the public gallery conversations continued as if in a cafe, a babble presided over by Judge Poutala Fotopoulou - apparently a dead ringer for Ann Widdecombe - in evident incredulity. 

Furthermore, this trial took place in a unique context. It has to be remembered that Greece is no ordinary country. The relationships between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland is Noddy and Bigears in comparison to the feelings between Turks and Greeks. Mutual loathing is an obsession; it is the grain around which each shapes the pearl of its identity, especially so for the Greeks, who are almost pathological in their loathing of Turks. 

Greek air-space is daily buzzed as a matter routine by Turkey, and Greece fighters regularly challenge Turkish air-defences, and do so repeatedly until missile systems are locked on. For strangers to wander around military airfields in the region noting down numbers and types of combat aircraft in such a climate of near-war could only mean one thing to the Greek airforce mind, especially since one of the visitors had not long before been a guest of the Turkish military. 

Actually, you don't have to be especially cosmopolitan to understand this. At the height of the Cold War, and even allowing for the British comprehension of this strange thing , the "hobby", how would RAF police have responded if parties of Greek planspotters had wandered around RAF bases noting the numbers and dispositions of V-bombers? Probably pretty swiftly and unceremoniously. Where you have military uncertainty, the failure to respond even to trivial provocation is seen to invite further provocation - hence the daily lock-on of missile systems over the Aegean. This isn't just a Greek-Turkish characteristic. Wasn't the failure to apprehend some unauthorised scrap-metal merchants in the Falklands just over 20 years later adjudged to have been a contributory factor to the Argentinian invasion? And wasn't much of the Cold War itself conducted over the North Sea, as long range Russian Bear bombers skirted British airspace, goading RAF Lightnings? 

So military neurosis might help explain the arrests, and even the subsequent charges, of the Kalamata Eight, though I would dearly have loved to have seen the looks on the Greek air force officers' faces as they listened incredulously to the plane-spotters' accounts of their hobbies. But it doesn't explain the ludicrous findings of the court, nor the savage sentences it handed out. And the conviction of the poor, bored grandmother Leslie Coppin, who spent her time in a car doing crosswords, for aiding and abetting the "spying" is simply grotesque. 

This is where cultures do not collide, but simply fail to make contact. I am completely unable to see what the judge apparently perceives with crystal clarity. And this is the way of the world: outsiders are often utterly beyond enlightenment with the cultural norms of other societies. The Kalamata Eight - I would guess - would have difficulty understanding the Faroe Islanders' enthusiasm for the harpooning of helpless whales in crowded bays, or the Spanish delight in the ornamental despatch of a bull, or the Brazilian passion for vast semi-nude carnivals, or even the Greek passion for well-groomed elegance, for male posturing and for women with blonde hair and jet-black Groucho Marx moustaches where other people have eyebrows. 

What would the Greek "Ann Widdecombe" make of an English fox-hunt, or rissoles, or rugby league, or fell-walking, or Black Rod, or a five day cricket test match, or canal-angling, or the Highland games in the rain, or deep-fried battered Mars bars, or Hampstead Heath at midnight, or the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, or Dad's Army? And most perplexing of all, what on earth would she make of the English Ann Widdecombe? 
[PS]Features: [ES] 

Letter to the Editor: 

===

Sunday Mirror 

April 28, 2002, Sunday 

 NEWS; Pg. 19 

WE'LL FLIGHT ON; 
 PLANESPOTTERS BRANDED AS SPIES VOW THEY'LL GET JUSTICE 

Lucy Lawrence 

RELIEF: Steven Rush is back with daughter Isla, three, yesterday;; HOME: Lesley Coppin arrives back at Luton; SHATTERED: Michael Bursell hugs his wife; DREAM: A boyhood hobby has become a living nightmare for Paul; Coppin 

BODY: 


THE planespotters branded spies by a Greek judge flew back into Britain yesterday and admitted: "This is not the homecoming we were hoping for." 

Tour organiser Paul Coppin said: "It was a travesty and a set-up. The Greeks knew they were going to convict us even before we got into court." Six members of the group including Mr Coppin were jailed for three years by a court in Kalamata, southern Greece. The other six were given one-year suspended sentences following their arrest near a Greek air base last November. Lawyers for the 12 have already lodged an appeal against their sentences. 

The group will be allowed to remain in Britain pending their appeal - but face paying thousands more in legal costs as they try to clear their names. 

There were emotional scenes as the group arrived back at Luton Airport were met by family and friends. Among them was Steven Rush, 38, found guilty of aiding and abetting, who was reunited with his three-year-old daughter Isla. 

Mr Coppin's wife Lesley, of Mildenhall, Suffolk, who was given a suspended sentence,vowed: "If the appeal fails then we'll take the case to Europe. This was not a decision based on the evidence, it was based on the whim of a small town court." 

Mrs Coppin, who said her husband had been keen on planes since he was a boy, added: "It'll be a struggle but we will take this all the way. The convictions are ridiculous. 

"We have all been left completely devastated by what has happened and to be quite honest if I never go to Greece, or even hear the word again, I will be quite happy." 

Fellow planespotter Graham Arnold, who faces three years in jail, added: "There is a real fear that six of us may have to go back to prison. 

"We spent five weeks in one last year - it's Hell. And the financial burden is horrific, I'm getting poorer by the day." 

The group already face legal and administrative costs of pounds 17,000 each. 

Mr Arnold, from Ottershaw in Surrey, said: "Since we were released last year I've been plane spotting in Scotland, Wales, Germany and France. Every other European country recognises the hobby. The Greeks really should drag themselves into the 21st Century. They did have a Greek word for plane spotting in court, so they know it exists. This was a fit-up". 

The group spent 37 days in jail before being allowed back to Britain to await trial. Since their arrests they have consistently claimed they were only pursuing their hobby. 

But the court decided the six, who had been jotting down aircraft numbers, were spying. The other six were found guilty of aiding and abetting. 

A Downing Street spokesman said Tony Blair was "closely" following the case and that the Greek response to it had been "disproportional". 

Stephen Jakobi, of Fair Trials Abroad, urged the group to forget about taking the case to a higher Greek court and instead concentrate on the European courts. 

"I don't believe there is a cat in hell's chance of getting anywhere in the Greek courts," he said.

===

SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) 

April 28, 2002, Sunday 
Pg. 05 

Planespotters 'facing financial ruin' Defendants' costs of pounds 16,000 each to rise as they vow to appeal against convictions 

BY DAVID HARRISON 


THE BRITISH planespotters convicted of spying in Greece said yesterday that they were facing financial ruin as well as the prospect of spending years in jail. 

The 12, who arrived back in Britain yesterday morning, nevertheless vowed to find enough money to take their appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, if necessary, in their fight to clear their names. 

Paul Coppin, 46, from Mildenhall, Suffolk, the leader of the group, said that the verdicts were a "disaster" because of the costs involved: "We have got to find huge legal fees again and I don't know how we will do that." 

The planespotters have already spent nearly pounds 17,000 each in administration and legal costs since they were detained last November. They are each likely to face further costs of at least pounds 10,000. They were held in prison for almost six weeks before being allowed to return to Britain on pounds 9,000 bail each. Yesterday, most of them said they had no idea how they will pay. Six of the Britons were jailed for three years by three women judges at Kalamata district court, while the others were given one-year suspended sentences for aiding and abetting. They were arrested after some had taken down aircraft numbers and used a radio scanner at an airforce open day in Kalamata last November. 

Lawyers for the aviation enthusiasts immediately announced their intention to appeal, after the two-day hearing, allowing those with custodial sentences to return home. They flew into Luton airport after a two-and-half hour flight from Athens. 

As they emerged into the terminal, the group angrily denounced the court's verdict as "scandalous", "shambolic" and "a gross miscarriage of justice". Mr Coppin, who received a three-year sentence, said: "We all feel shattered by the verdict. The judges had made up their minds before the trial had even started. 

"I was horrified by what went on. There was no evidence against us and we were convinced we would win. We were shocked by the verdicts. There was no way that we had a fair trial. They convicted us just to save the face of the Greek airforce." 

Mr Coppin's wife, Leslie, 51, said that the group would appeal even though it could take up to two years. "The fight goes on," she said. "We will take this all the way to the European Court if we have to." 

Asked if she had faith in Greek justice, Mrs Coppin said: "We have to appeal through the Greek system first but I would like to have an assurance that the judge will look at the evidence and not just worry about preventing the Greek airforce from looking silly." 

Yesterday, the crippling costs of the case were an additional concern. The first legal bill for each spotter, covering costs up to December, was for more than pounds 3,000 and they managed to pay this only with help from family, friends and loans. On top of that came the pounds 9,000 bail. Some of the spotters were assisted by newspapers; others again had to use savings or appeal to family. 

On Friday, during a recess, the planespotters were presented with another legal bill, for more than pounds 4,000. 

Mr Coppin said: "There are no wealthy people among us. Most of us have no idea where the next pounds 4,000 will come from. The appeal will only add to the bill and this case could bring financial disaster to the members of our group." 

Mike Bursell, 47, from Swanland, near Hull, said he raised the first pounds 3,000 legal bill and pounds 9,000 bail with help from his family and friends. "I don't know how we will pay the pounds 4,000," he said. 

Mr Bursell said that the extra bill and the prospect of even more charges gave the planespotters another reason to fight on. "We need to obtain justice and that will also help us to recoup some of the outlay." 

Peter Norris, 53, an export manager from Uxbridge, Middlesex, said that planespotting was an innocent pastime. "To call it spying is ridiculous. The information they accused us of gathering illegally is freely available on the Internet." 

Mr Norris said that he would not boycott Greece but added that it was "not a good idea" to go on holiday there. "It's not a safe place where the legal system is concerned," he said. 

Downing Street said that Tony Blair had raised the case with Costas Simitis, the Greek prime minister. Mr Blair's official spokesman said: "The Government has always believed that the [judicial] response to this case has been disproportionate." 

A spokesman for the Greek Embassy in London said that the trial had been fair. He said: "I believe that the judiciary carried out the task in a very civilised way." 
 





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