The prosecution and defense lawyers are “threatening” to abstain until their request is granted, while parents of the slain policeman are calling for “inhumane conditions”.
The anger and outrage of the slain policeman’s parents Giorgos Lyggeridis and the patience of all those involved in the court is running out as long as the competent authorities do not heed the constant calls for the trial to be transferred from the courtroom of Korydallos prison to Athens Court of Appeal.
Daily, the lawyers of the prosecution and the defence, as well as the judges and prosecutors, raise the issue of the transfer and as long as their voices continue to “boom in the desert”, the more the thoughts of abstaining from the trial are reinforced.
However, that would be disastrous, as the hearing is not even halfway through and it is a long way to completion, given that it will also be interrupted for the summer holidays, at least for two months. Furthermore,possible delays may also lead to the statute of limitations for certain offences that are misdemeanours.
So the questions repeatedly raised by the mother of the slain policeman, Eugenia Liggeridis, are relentless:”I spent two weeks personally appealing to the relevant ministries for the trial to be moved. No one is responding. I wonder why they don’t transfer us.”
Similarly, the tragic father, Thanasis Liggeridis often frequently lashes out: “We are not imprisoned me and my wife to come to prison.The conditions are inhumane. There is no fair trial without an audience.” “We find that the courtroom is empty of audience. The only ones present are the parents with their mental anguish multiplying every time they are here. The physical space of the court is not the court jail. A public trial is considered a trial in the physical space of a court such as the Athens Court of Appeal,” noted the lawyer of the Liggeridis family, Maria Hadjikonstantinou.
The defense lawyers also provide their full consent and assistance in the effort to transfer the trial. “Despite the repeated requests of all parties involved in the trial, the case heard since 5 November 2025 in the Korydallos court prison continues, under unfavourable conditions, to be heard in the same courtroom.
The state has an obligation and it is not up to its goodwill to ensure decent trial conditions. Since it has so far been deafeningly and without serious justification, I believe that the only appropriate way for us to be heard, so that we can exercise our defensive duties as we should, is to lift the decision of the IAC and the ICJ to suspend the lawyers’ abstention from the trial in question”, says one of the defence lawyers, Panagiotis Guskos, in the Manifesto.
The lawyers of the trial believe that they were essentially deceived by the competent authorities because shortly before the start of the hearing, the Lawyers’ Associations of Athens and Piraeus had decided to abstain until the issue of the courtroom was resolved. At that time, in order not to delay the hearing of the case, they received an assurance from the state that after the major trials at the Court of Appeal (Golden Dawn trial, etc.) are over, the issue of the Lygeridis trial will be settled.
Based on this “promise”, the lawyers suspended the abstention. Today, however, and several months after the conclusion of the trial of Golden Dawn, they are in the unfortunate position that those responsible do not show any willingness to keep their promise, and this may be the reason why the decision to abstain may be activated.
Crappy facilities
According to the lawyers, the courtroom is absolutely inappropriately shaped (oblong), which makes it impossible for the large number of advocates and litigants to follow the ongoing proceedings.
The crude, poorly built and with minimal surface area, the counsel’s benches are not even sufficient for depositing the documents of the voluminous documentation. The courtroom has only one microphone on each side, meaning that lawyers receiving the floor have to leave their designated bench and rush to the only microphone. In addition, they raise hygiene issues as, they note, “the room is smelly and highly unsanitary, low-ceilinged and with inadequate ventilation”.
Required respect
For their part, the parents of George Liggeridis, who breathed his last brutally beaten by abysmal blind fan hatred, are taking up the cross of martyrdom, dragging their feet from Thessaloniki to Korydallos to attend a trial that is being conducted in a desert of silence by many media outlets.
So, if the state could not see and prevent the murder of George Liggeridis on that winter night in 2023, let it listen to the pleas and entreaties of his parents, drawn from the worst tragedy.
