{"id":10187,"date":"2026-06-11T14:27:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=10187"},"modified":"2026-06-11T14:27:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T11:27:00","slug":"valyrakis-trial-lifeguard-could-drown-sifis-could-not-testified-antonis-samaras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=10187","title":{"rendered":"Valyrakis trial: &#8216;Lifeguard could drown, Sifis could not&#8217;, testified Antonis Samaras"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <b>Antonis Samaras<\/b> testified today (11.6) in Valyrakis court and referred to the last communication he had with <b>Sephi Valyrakis<\/b> before his <b>death<\/b>. <\/p>\n<p>Antonis Samaras contended that it was a <a href=\"https:\/\/tomanifesto.gr\/dolofonia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">murder and not a tragic accident involving a former PASOK minister. The former prime minister had a telephone conversation with Sifi Valyrakis on the morning of the day he breathed his last. Samaras claimed that the occasion for their <b>contact <\/b>was an article he had published in <b>Kathimerini<\/b>, with Sifi Valyrakis expressing his agreement and informing him that <b>he had also written an article<\/b> on <b>Turkish provocations<\/b>, which was to be published a few days later in <b>Neas<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>As Samaras said, just <b>an hour and a half later he received a phone call<\/b> from <b>Mina Valyraki<\/b> who was looking for him. <em>&#8220;I felt overwhelmed. I didn&#8217;t believe that such a man<b>could ever die.<\/b> It was very hard for anyone who knows him to believe that it wasn&#8217;t <b>murder<\/b>. From the pictures I saw this I believe it was a <b>murder<\/b>. Sifis Valyrakis could not drown, a lifeguard could drown, Sifis could not.&#8221; <\/em>As for how he heard him on their phone call, he said &#8220;I heard him fine, lion.&#8221; <em>&#8220;I remember him saying the word &#8216;agree&#8217; and that he informed me that he had written an article on the same issues that would be published in another newspaper,&#8221;<\/em> he added. <\/p>\n<h3>What Antonis Samaras testified about Sifis Valyrakis<\/h3>\n<p><em>&#8220;In terms of <b>physical condition<\/b> he was&#8230; <b>anvil<\/b>. This man is still <b>unthinkable<\/b> for me to say that he could have died if <b>there was no brutal murder,&#8221;<\/b><\/em> Antonis Samaras testified, adding: <em>&#8220;It seems to be fate that anyone past 70 is decommissioned. It is not so. Especially for Sethi. <strong>He was fearless, undaunted, climbing on military planes!<\/strong> A<b> Cretan leviathan<\/b>, who made the daring venture of swimming across Albania. Knowing Sifi it is <b>impossible to believe<\/b> that this man <b>could not tame the sea<\/b>. It&#8217;s funny to say that. A lifeguard could drown, Seth could not.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Antonis Samaras testified today (11.6) in the Valyrakis trial and referred to the last communication he had with Sifi Valyrakis before his death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greece"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}