Two men were charged with espionage over the weekend on the eastern Aegean island of Rhodes, one of whom is a Greek citizen who works for the Turkish consulate on the island.
According to extensive media reports from Rhodes and Athens, Greek authorities charged the pair with spying for neighboring — and increasingly belligerent — Turkey, with the focus of the alleged espionage being the small islet of Kastellorizo, in the extreme southeastern tip of the Aegean Sea.
According to reports, both men hail from the northeast city of Komotini and are members of the Thrace border region’s sizable Muslim minority, recognized as such by the 1923 Lausanne Treaty.
The Turkish consulate employee is 35 years old and has cultivated a very high-profile presence on the island, while the other suspect was identified as a 56-year-old cook on a ferry boat plying the Rhodes-Kastellorizo route.
According to the Rhodes daily “Dimokratiki”, the cook freely admitted his role in spying for the consulate employee, with his mission being to take photographs of Greek naval vessels anchored at or near Kastellorizo and to report on the size, schedules and deployment of defense forces on the isle.
He was conditionally freed pending trial on Sunday evening by a local prosecutor and magistrate, with unconfirmed media reports claiming he said his actions were not for money, but “to help my homeland (i.e. Turkey).”
The Greek Intelligence Service reported detected the pair last August and began a surveillance operation.
The Turkish consulate employee first came under scrutiny for his activity vis-a-vis a shadowy group called the “Muslim Brotherhood of Rhodes”, whose Facebook page purportedly promotes symbols and propaganda linked with Turkish nationalist and Islamist circles.
The large Dodecanese island of Rhodes, in fact, hosts tiny Muslim minority, a community that dates to the isle’s conquest by the Ottoman Turks in the 16th century, although its members have for decades been highly integrated into the local society.
