Aspropyrgos camp to serve as temporary lockup for foreigners, justice minister repeats

    Justice Minister Anastasios Papaligouras on Friday reiterated that an old army camp in Aspropyrgos that was currently being refurbished and modified to serve as a detention centre would be used as a temporary lock up for foreigners destined to be deported, in response to questions put to his by Attica MP Theodoros Pangalos in Parliament.

   

    He also noted that if local authorities refused to accept the new facilities, the government had alternative solutions.

   

    The minister categorically denied press reports that the camp was destined as "warehouse space" for undesirables such as beggars, homeless people, illegal immigrants and drug addicts during the Olympic Games in August.

   

    "The truth is that more than one million tourists, here specifically for the Olympic Games, will visit our country in August. Statistically, based on the figures from previous Olympics, it is certain that some of them will break the law. We need somewhere to hold these people temporarily, especially those that are arrested on the spot and are due to be deported in the next few days or weeks. This is what the specific camp in Aspropyrgos is destined for," Papaligouras underlined.

   

    He said the government had been forced to resort to this solution because Greek jails were massively overcrowded, while stressing that the site at least five kilometres from inhabited areas, hidden among hills and did not affect the daily life of the residents.

   

    Responding to the MP's questions, Papaligouras again stressed that the facilities were temporary and that no one was designed to stay there after October.