Greek opposition demands legal reasoning for Iranian oil confiscation
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The largest Greek opposition party asks Athens to give legal reasoning behind its confiscation of Iranian oil tankers off Greek coasts.
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The SYRIZA Greek opposition party
The largest opposition party in Greece, Coalition of the Radical Left - Progressive Alliance (SYRIZA), asked Tuesday Athens to clarify the legal grounds for confiscating Iranian oil from a former Russian-flagged tanker at the direction of the United States.
"What was the legal basis for the US request for legal assistance in confiscating oil from the tanker? Was the proposal of the [Greek] anti-money laundering authority to continue the detention of the Russian ship contrary [to the US request]?" SYRIZA asked.
"On what legal basis did the ship remain detained during the time between the cancellation of the original decision about its arrest by the anti-money laundering authority and the decision of the one-judge trial court of Chalcis to grant the US request?" the party added.
Initially, the party said, the anti-money laundering authority decided against the confiscation of Iranian oil or detaining the tanker, noting that the sanctions imposed by the United States on Iran are not considered legal by the European Union and Greece.
SYRIZA also asked what actions had been taken for the immediate release of the crew and why Athens had not received significant support from the US, the party that initiated the process of confiscation.
The Iranian port authority announced on Wednesday that Greek authorities impounded a ship carrying the Iranian flag and confiscated its cargo by court order and in coordination with the US government.
The port authority added that the ship sought shelter in Greek ports to protect the safety of its crew, but received no aid, noting that the ship was unloaded by the army, in a step that is considered a clear example of piracy.
Originally, the ship is Russian-flagged - named Pegas - but it changed its flag to an Iranian one to avoid EU and US sanctions over the Ukraine war.
The Pegas oil tanker, with 19 Russian crew members on board, was detected by Greek authorities on April 8 and seized under anti-Russian EU sanctions.
In the same context, Iran's state news agency IRNA confirmed that the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the chargé d'affaires of Greece's embassy in Tehran in regard to the matter and informed him of the Iranian government's "strong objections".
It is noteworthy that this was not the first time the US seized Iranian fuel. In 2020, Washington seized "four cargoes of Iranian fuel aboard foreign ships that were bound for Venezuela and transferred them with the help of undisclosed foreign partners onto two other ships which then sailed to the United States," Reuters highlighted.
Iranian media reported two days later that Iran's Coast Guard seized two Greek oil tankers, the Delta Poseidon and the Prudent Warrior, off the coast of Aslaviyeh and Bandar Lengeh.
Iranian media outlets said that Tehran has made the decision to take punitive measures against Greece on account of the latter's seizing of an Iranian oil tanker close to its coasts.
