A Turkish judge, aged 50, arrived on the island of Chios on Tuesday morning with a boatload of Syrian refugees who left from Cesme on the Turkish south coast, opposite the Greek island. Following his arrest for illegal entry after the boat was detected by Greek coast guards at 6:00 in the morning, he showed documentation confirming his identity and designation and asked for political asylum on the grounds of being persecuted by Turkish authorities under the leadership of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The local newspaper Politis Chios reports that the Turkish official has been taken to Athens and his request will be examined. The man’s asylum application to Greece follows other requests by a family of academics, three businessmen and eight Turkish military officials who fled to Greece in a helicopter in the wake of the failed coup on July 15.
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