Greek prison system collapsing _ labeled 'inhuman'
ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- More than 30 men were crammed into the cell, locked up night and day for weeks or months. Without enough bunks, many slept on the floor. The windows were painted over, blocking out the sun, and the air was thick with cigarette smoke and the reek of the one toilet everyone shared.
But what might come as the biggest surprise about this prison was its location: In Greece, squarely in Europe. That's where former prisoner Giorgos Aslanis spent about three months in a roughly 40 square meter (400 square feet) police holding cell in the northern town of Serres. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in October that conditions in the cell broke European laws against inhuman or degrading punishment and awarded him 8,000 euros ($11,000) in damages.
Greece suffers the worst prison overcrowding in the European Union, according to figures in the Council of Europe's latest annual prison report, published in May. Inmate numbers reached a record high this year, and many prisons simply refuse to accept new arrivals. That leaves hundreds caged for months as they await trial in police holding cells designed for stints of hours or at most days. Suspects and convicts are often bundled together, in violation of Greek and European law.
The Associated Press pieced together this stark picture of Greece's prison crisis from about 20 interviews across the system; reports from Greece's parliament and European rights bodies; documents from within the prison system, an exclusive letter from the head of an appeals court and a confidential police report.
"It's a system," said Spyros Karakitsos, head of the Greek Federation of Prison Employees, "that is collapsing."
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