suspended three- and six-years’ imprisonment. In 2014, they were acquitted by the appeals court. In 2004, at another police station in the centre of Athens, Agios Panteleimonas, police officers allegedly tortured a group of Afghan nationals using falanga (a form of torture where the soles of the feet are beaten )54 and ‘Palestinian hanging’ (a form of torture wherein the victim's hands are tied behind their back and suspended by a rope attached to the wrists).55 In this case, the officers implicated were convicted to 20- and 25-months’ imprisonment for inflicting “unintentional” bodily harm, yet the ECtHR established once again the failure by national authorities to conduct a thorough and effective investigation.56 Recorded complaints, court proceedings or videos of abuse which have managed to receive media attention do not reveal the extent of the problem. Human rights organisations and monitoring bodies have highlighted that migrants often feared they would be subjected to further ill-treatment if they submitted any complaints. Detainees at the infamous Omonoia police station reported being discouraged by police officers from complaining because “it would not be in their best interests.” (CPT, 2006, p. 14) At Omonoia police station, a detainee who claimed he had been ill-treated by the police officers, was threatened with deportation unless he stated that he no longer wished to see a doctor (CPT, 2008). In relation to a case of another detainee who died in custody at Omonoia Police Station, the Commander refused the CPT delegation’s request to have access to certain papers and, subsequently, removed them from the file, which the delegation was reviewing (CPT, 2008). The Iranian detainee had apparently been suffering from drug withdrawal symptoms. He had been screaming in pain for hours before he died of peritonitis, without any medical attention. Hiding and destructing evidence seems to have been common practice. According to testimonies I have heard from people working in the field, there used to be empty and old buildings of police centres in the Evros region, where the police transferred injured people to keep them out of sight and evade responsibility for their actions. In most cases, officers on duty refused requests to arrange for proper medical examination of the people in question, while vehemently denying the possibility of any police involvement in the alleged assaults. This means that many detainees did not receive treatment for their injuries. Even 54 55 Dignity – Danish Institute against Torture (n.d.). Wikipedia (n.d.). 56The case is Sarwari and others v Greece (2019). See also the press release on this case by the Lawyers’ Group for the Rights of Refugees and Migrants (Omada Dikigorwn, 2012) and Sitaropoulos (2017). 86