While everyone on Thursday, June 20, waited for the decision of the Mixed Court of Appeal of Athens in the trial for the kidnapping and murder of Marios Papageorgiou, the court will finally announce it on eleven in the morning of Wednesday 26th of the month.
The meeting ended in tense as after the lawyers’ speeches, the “mastermind” took the floor, arguing that he had done nothing of what he was accused. He said that Marios’s mother had asked him to watch her son while addressing the victim’s lawyer, Nikos Roussopoulos, saying that “this slander tells all this for me.”
Then the audience got fire! Marios’s relatives and friends who had flooded the room since morning began shouting and demanding to tell where is his buried.
It is important that the decision will be announced in June, as from 1 July the new Penal Code introduces lighter penalties in cases of homicide.
It is also of great interest that the Prosecutor’s Supplementary Proposals, which may seriously call for prosecution of persons who have not yet been accused, are also expected.
The prosecutor in her initial proposal at the previous meeting accepted the involvement of two specific individuals in the case as collaborators of the main accused. For the first she acknowledged the meetings he had with him for the carriage of the corpse, and for the second she said he might have been involved in the murder of the young man. She said that there are several questions about the attitude of one of his two police officers sons and reserved to report on this at the end of the trial.
The meeting in the morning of Thursday, June 20, began with delay, as the police cage carrying the “mastermind” arrived at the Court of Appeals. His lawyer requested not to start the proceedings so that his client could have the opportunity to hear the ‘legal representatives’ speeches.
The lawyers speeches
At the beginning of the trial in a crowded room after Nikos Roussopoulos who completed his speech the previous time, the second legal representative of the victim’s family, Panayiotis Koureleas, began.
He said the accused’s claim after the evidence and the confirmed prosecutor’s suggestion that Marios directed his kidnapping is really funny and in vain.
“He tried to present to us Mario as a ruthless young man who wanted to ruin his mother and his aunt financially in order to repay some drug dealers and ask for the help of the accused, but how did he stop communicating with him? Marios is somewhere and watches indifferently everything that is happening? Even the sons of the main accused did not say anything wrong for the victim, nor did he take drugs or have a problem with his family, all of it is a fantastic story of the main accused that suits only himself”, he said.
At this point the “mastermind” laughed and was strongly disapproved by the audience.
“In addition to all this,” Mr. Koureleas continued in his speech, “I expect an explanation for the blood that was found. The lawyer’s line of accusation is not what his client says but the fact that there is no corpse. When a corpse is not found we can not talk about homicide – that is, a criminal is so capable of eliminating a corpse but is impossible to convict him? There is strong evidence from mr Fitsialos research that must be taken seriously in your decision. He told us that the blood found did not correspond to a cut, as the accused claims. The blood was too much, stretched to the spare wheel, so Marios did not enter the trunk in a situation that could fight and move. If the accused could give a sign of life Marios mother would immediately give the money to him. But as the policemen testified, it is the first time in a kidnapping case that there was no sign of life from the first moment because Marios from the first day was dead! ” he emphasized.
In his speech, Mr. Koureleas stood in the last calls of the “mastermind” to Mario.
“These phone calls had to be examined by the Greek Police, and the phone card used by the accused was first used on August 1. He was planning and buying his material from that time. At the same area was his son, who at 9:53 pm called the victim.This was the last phone call to Mario. Why his son did not reveal it? Why he did not tell Marios friends? The first time that was mentioned to this phone call in this was on October 17 and his colleagues covered him … “he said.
Mr Koureleas also referred to the possibility that the corpse was transferred to the old American military base on Mount Pateras, as the point was known to the accused and because Marios’s car never reached the Isthmus of Corinth. He stressed that the “mastermind”, in contrast to Mario, who saw him as his father, wanted to take the ransom, and that he had accepted from the beginning that at some point the murder would take place and would follow his next plan for murdering his mother .
“To this woman, you owe it to me to close the case, she still waits for a reply for her child, to carry out additional prosecutions to those who unloaded the corpse, and as even the former director of Homocide department who was then investigating the case, would evaluate as important if he knew them in 2012, as he testified in court, “he concluded in his speech.
Then there was tension in the room when the lawyer of the “mastermind” asked the Seat to bring to court the witness who testified to the authorities that the corpse of Marios was burned in Ano Diakopto, something the Prosecutor disagreed with.
The lawyer of the “mastermind” Manolis Anastasakis began his speech by saying that this trial is a unique experience for everyone because there is “darkness” in what happened then and where Marios is now.
“Yes,” said Mr. Anastasakis, “the media are conducting another trial, and for what grasp we are talking about?” After Marios went with his will to find the accused. Those who are interested in the truth, the trial and Marios are in the room and do not go to social media convictions. The defendant has four children, his first wife died and raised them himself and he is respectful, he is not the anthropomorphic monster they present. We have no confession! Eventually my client is the perpetrator or an accomplice? Nothing is specified and how are accusations of kidnaping and murder? Does not make sense… Why does not my client speak? He is convicted for life, now his children could be accused and he still does not talk … Maybe because he does not know? Yes, there is no corpse and when there is no corpse there must be at least a confession … “.
See frame by frame all the developments in the case here.
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