European Court of Human Rights rules against Greece in 2014 fatal shooting of a Syrian man

By ELENA BECATOROS
Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Greece in the shooting of a Syrian man during a coast guard’s pursuit of a migrant smuggling boat near a Greek island about a decade ago. In a ruling announced Tuesday, the court, based in Strasbourg, France, ordered Greece to pay about $87,000 in damages to the wife and two children of Belal Tello, who died in December 2015, more than a year after sustaining a gunshot wound to the head after Greek coast guards chased the boat he had been traveling in. The court said Greece had failed to provide an adequate legal framework concerning the potential lethal use of firearms during coast guard operations, and had violated the right to life under the European Convention on Human Rights.