Greece yesterday convicted but freed 14 plane-spotters from fellow NATO members Britain and the Netherlands after handing them suspended jail sentences for obtaining state secrets.
Judge Potoula Fotopoulou sentenced eight of the group to three-year terms for "illegally obtaining state secrets" and the other six to one year each for aiding them, despite their protests they were pursuing an innocent, if eccentric, hobby.
After the guilty verdict the plane-spotters looked frozen and shocked. But when the suspensions were announced, several of them turned around, hugged and kissed relatives sitting nearby.
"Tell them they must be careful from now on," Judge Fotopoulou told the court translator to relay to the defendants as she ordered them freed.
"We were expecting to be acquitted. I didn't think this could happen in the 21st century in a European country," one of the plane-spotters, Mr Mike Bursell, said.
"I'm going to take this as far as is needed to be taken. I don't feel that we have seen justice today in Kalamata," he added.
The plane-spotters said they would appeal against the verdict, determined to clear their names, despite the mounting legal fees and their bail payments being held until their appeal trial.
European Parliament deputy, Mr Richard Howitt, who attended the trial as a key defence witness for the 13 men and one woman, condemned the court's decision."The terrifying thing is that these poor people will have to face a year where their lives are in confusion. It's a diabolical decision."
The plane-spotters were arrested in November at a military base in the southern town of Kalamata and originally charged with the more serious crime of espionage.
After a flurry of diplomatic consultations between Britain and Greece, the 13 men and one woman were released on bail and the charge was reduced from spying to the misdemeanour of obtaining national secrets.
The Greek Foreign Ministry said it was a fair trial by a sympathetic court.
"The fact the sentences were suspended shows the Greek court's sensitivity on this issue," ministry spokesman Mr Panos Beglitis said.
Britain hit back at the court's decision, calling it a "disproportionate" response to an innocent pastime.
The defendants toured seven Greek airbases, two aircraft museums and a plane scrapyard before being detained.
They told judges they were indulging a hobby popular in Britain, after receiving an official invitation to attend an air display.
But their hobby, virtually unknown in Greece, baffled court officials, who repeatedly asked the defendants to explain exactly what they do. - (Reuters)