The sinking was one of the worst-ever disasters known to have happened in the Mediterranean Sea.
It is estimated the boat was carrying up to 750 migrants when it set off from the port of Tobruk in Libya nearly a week earlier.
Eighty-two bodies were recovered, but the United Nations believes an additional 500 people – including 100 women and children who were in the hold of the boat – may have died.
Audio recordings obtained by Greek website News247.gr, external reveal phone calls involving the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) at the port of Piraeus, near the capital Athens.
In the first call, at 18:50 local time (15:50 GMT) on 13 June, an officer is heard explaining to the man piloting the migrant boat that a large red vessel will soon be approaching to give supplies and that he should explain that the migrants do not want to reach Greece.
Officer 1:
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The boat proceeding to you in order to give you fuel, water and food. And in one hour we send you a second boat, OK?
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Tell captain to big red ship “We don’t want to go Greece”. OK?
The replies of the man captaining the migrant boat are not heard.
In a second call, 90 minutes later, at 22:10, a seemingly different officer from the same coordination centre, speaks to the captain of the Lucky Sailor (the “big red ship”).
Officer 2: OK, captain, sorry before I couldn’t hear you. I couldn’t understand what did you say to me. You told me you gave them food, water and they told you that they don’t want to stay in Greece and they want to go to Italy, they don’t want anything else?
Lucky Sailor captain: Yes because I asked them by megaphone “Greece or Italia?” and everybody there screaming Italia.
Officer 2: Aah, OK, OK everybody screaming that they don’t want Greece and they want Italy?
Lucky Sailor captain: Yes, yes, yes.
Officer 2: OK
Lucky Sailor captain: They are all like crowded people, very crowded, full deck.
Officer 2: OK, captain. So you have finished with the supplies?
Lucky Sailor captain: Yes, sir, yes.
Officer 2: Captain, I want this, I want this to write it in your logbook. The bridge logbook.
Lucky Sailor captain: Yes OK, we will write it.
Officer 2: OK?
Lucky Sailor captain: Yes
Officer 2: I want you to write it about that they don’t want to stay in Greece and they want to go to Italy. They want nothing from Greece and they want to go to Italy.
Lucky Sailor captain: OK, yes, yes.
Another vessel, the Faithful Warrior, also gave some supplies to the migrant boat but no further conversations between its captain and the Greek authorities have emerged.
The Greek coastguard did not comment on the contents of the conversations but told the BBC it had submitted “all the material it had in its possession, including the audio recordings and the diaries of events” to the Maritime Court Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating.
It said it had rescued more than a quarter of a million migrants in danger at sea in the last decade and arrested more than a thousand smugglers, and that its humanitarian work had been recognised internationally.
