Romain Chauvet was sentenced to six months in prison simply for doing his job as a reporter. Although he was later acquitted on appeal, the psychological trauma remains
On the afternoon of October 12, 2023, journalist Romain Chauvet was on his way to the restroom at Athens International Airport when he was stopped by officers from the Airport Security Department. He was arrested for allegedly spreading false news and spent the night in custody. Two weeks later, a court handed him a six-month suspended prison sentence.
Chauvet, a French-Canadian journalist, had been reporting from Eleftherios Venizelos Airport in the wake of the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel. Weeks after his acquittal on appeal, Chauvet spoke to iMEdD about his ordeal, which he says has left lasting psychological scars. “As much as I love Greece, I wouldn’t go back even for a vacation,” he said.
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The Initial Verdict
On the morning of October 12, 2023, Chauvet received a message from a colleague at Radio Canada alerting him that the first evacuation of Canadian tourists from Israel back to their homeland was scheduled for that day, following the outbreak of the war in Gaza. He confirmed the information through related reports in other Canadian media outlets. The Royal Canadian Air Force flight would travel from Tel Aviv to Athens, after which the passengers would continue on to Canada with civilian flights.
At the time, Chauvet had been living in Greece for about a year. He was pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens while working as a freelance correspondent for Radio Canada and the French TV channel BFMTV. His coverage included the Tempi train disaster, the Pylos shipwreck, and the devastating Rhodes wildfires in the summer of 2023. Once again, he was at the scene to report.
After receiving permission from the airport’s press office, he went to Eleftherios Venizelos Airport. There, he approached an employee at the Information Office and asked about the arrival time of the Canadian military flight. Since it was a military aircraft, its arrival was not listed on the airport’s public display boards. Chauvet says that information about the flight was, however, publicly available on Canadian TV and websites like flightradar24. The employee told him she didn’t know when the plane was due.
“I sat there waiting, hoping to spot Canadian flags or French-Canadian tourists to interview. Moments later, I was arrested,” Chauvet told iMEdD, adding that, at first, he assumed it was a routine ID check.
But according to police statements recorded in court documents reviewed by iMEdD, Chauvet had allegedly told the airport’s employee he had information that a bomb had been planted on the plane from Israel.
“That never happened,” Chauvet said, maintaining his innocence from the beginning. “It was a nightmare. I couldn’t understand where this was coming from or what was going to happen.”
When the plane landed in Athens, it was directed to a designated, remote area of the airport. Police carried out a full investigation, including sniffer dog searches and a sweep of the cabin by the Greek Police’s bomb disposal unit. Nothing suspicious was found.
Two weeks later, the Athens Single-Judge Misdemeanors Court convicted Chauvet of disseminating false information and sentenced him to six months in prison, suspended for three years. In court, he defended himself by saying he had clearly identified himself as a journalist and merely asked about the plane’s arrival time.
“I was there doing my job. I just asked when the plane was expected, given the delays caused by the war,” he told the court.
The Break-in at the Apartment
Today, a year and a half later, he says he is still shocked by his conviction. “I couldn’t understand the sentence. I felt like I was in a movie. Even today, I feel strange. I’m traumatized,” he said.
After the court’s decision, Chauvet, who holds both French and Canadian citizenship, returned to France. But then something unexpected happened: men with their faces covered broke into his apartment in Athens, yet took nothing. He saw the intruders on the next door building’s security camera.
“They were wearing masks and gloves,” he told iMEdD. “I found it strange that they didn’t steal anything. I felt really intimidated,” he added, noting that after the incident, he decided never to return to Greece.
The criminal complaint filed for the incident stated that the unknown persons broke into the adjacent apartment building and climbed to the sixth floor. There, they broke into a neighboring apartment and jumped onto Chauvet’s balcony. According to the report, which was filed at the Exarchia police station, the perpetrators ‘in an unknown way, but certainly with the use of relevant equipment and erasers, and in no case only with the use of their hands, managed to “bend” the resistance and the weight of the security roller of the balcony door of the dormitory’. They thus entered the journalist’s apartment. “Having searched all areas of the house, including wardrobes, cupboards, drawers, etc. and despite the fact that there were items of value that a burglar who went to all this trouble could remove/use nothing was ultimately removed,” the complaint notes.
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Acquittal of the Journalist — Conviction of Press Freedom
At the end of March 2025, Chauvet was acquitted by the appeals court that reviewed the case in Athens. “We are very pleased to have secured Romain’s acquittal in the Court of Appeals after a lot of hard work. A misunderstanding by an airport employee led to a series of sad, exhausting, and frustrating experiences for my client, who was simply doing his job,” said Dimitris Georgakopoulos, the lawyer who represented Chauvet on appeal. “The authorities bear enormous responsibility, from the moment he was arrested until his conviction in the initial trial,” he added.
Romain Chauvet now lives and works in Spain. He completed his postgraduate studies at the University of Athens. “I knew about the state of journalism and freedom of the press in Greece, but it’s different to hear about something and to experience it yourself,” he said, adding that although he likes Greece very much, he will not return, as he now associates it with this traumatic experience.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomed the Court of Appeal’s acquittal.
“The former correspondent for French and Canadian outlets in Greece was simply doing his job and should never have been prosecuted,” the organization said in a statement.
“The time has come for such incidents to disappear and for press freedom to be better protected — not only through legislative improvements, but also by cultivating a different culture within state authorities and services, to prevent such unpleasant situations in the future,” lawyer Dimitris Georgakopoulos told iMEdD.
Greece ranked 88th in Reporters Without Borders’ 2024 World Press Freedom Index. In 2023, it ranked 107th.
