Greek court acquits Turk accused of trespassing

A Greek court overturned a prison sentence and fine for a Turkish excavator operator and ordered the return of the excavator yesterday.

Musa Alerik, a Turkish worker from the border city of Edirne, was released May last year hours after he was captured for illegally crossing the border.

Alerik was digging a water well near the border and claimed that he accidentally crossed the border. Though he was returned to Turkey, a Greek court handed him a five-month prison sentence and a fine of 1,500 euros ($1,700).

Turkish authorities took the case to a higher court in Greece that overruled the prison sentence and the fine. It also ordered the return of the excavator to the Edirne municipality, Alerik's employer.

His Greek lawyer Cristina Kapetanidou told reporters after the hearing in the Greek city of Orestiada that her client had no intention to deliberately cross to the Greek side. "The previous ruling was based on insufficient evidence and today's verdict fixed this," she said.