“He was waiting for him and killed him…”

Tension prevailed in the courtroom as the victim’s middle sister could not keep her composure and started shouting.

“I want this man to be sentenced to life imprisonment.” He was hanging out in the bars.”

The victim’s nephew, George Graikos, who works in his livestock unit, referred to the causes of the murder.

“My uncle could not claim the money owed to him by the accused.” He was beaten to death.”

The victim’s nephew, referring to the accused, said that after the murder he was calm.” For two and a half years my uncle was thrown in the dung and he was playing it cool,” he concluded.

A little later, the victim’s brother, Nikos Graikos, who started the whole process with the great search in the “Tunnel” to find the truth, wondered: “why did you kill my brother? This issue still concerns me.”

“Maybe he wanted me for an alibi…”

The possibility that he used him as an alibi was mentioned before the court by the motorist Harizanos Tripkos, the man who transported the soil to the livestock unit of the accused on the afternoon of the murder of Graikos.

At the beginning of his testimony, Mr. Tripkos said that he did not know the victim, however he collaborated with the perpetrator from time to time.

“I called the accused around 16:00 that day and told him that I had soil. He replied that he needed it and that I should deliver it to him later because he had a job at that time. ”

“We talked at 17:50, he told me he was in his stable and I went there. I emptied the soil at the back of the unit, but I did not see either the defendant or the Graiko’s car. ”

When the witness asked the accused about the disappearance of Graikos, he replied that he had probably been killed by some moneylenders.

“The accused was calm, as I always knew him,” he added.

“He told me his mind was confused…”

Absolute ignorance about the murder of the farmer was stated by the perpetrator’s wife, emphasizing that she had learned about the disappearance from the media.

My husband had not mentioned it and when I asked him he replied that he did not know anything.

“At night he was anxious in his sleep and had lost loads of weight. Many times he did not sleep. I did not notice that anything strange was happening”, she said stated and attributed the small change in her husband’s behavior to the workload.

“At one point he told me that he had been called by security and that he was being accused of killing Graikos and asked me to go home to support the children,” he testified.

When asked about what her husband told her after his arrest, she stressed that he informed her that he went to the stable, saw Graikos, they quarreled and then what happened happened.

As she said, the accused was sad and was crying.

“He told me that Graikos attacked him first and that his mind was confused.”

Concluding, he stated that on that day the accused had returned home around 22:30.” It simply came to our notice then.” When I put his clothes to wash, there was no blood.”

Read details about the trial and the case here.