Tension <\/b>and serious reactions <\/b>were sparked by the trial regarding the murder of police officer GGeorge Lyggeridis<\/b> the testimony of a witness\u2014a soccer fan<\/b>\u2014who, during the preliminary investigation <\/b>proceedings, had identified in detail 13 of the defendants, <\/b>today, before the court , <\/b>completely recanted his previous testimony.<\/p>\n
The witness claimed that what he had told the Security Police <\/b>did not correspond to reality<\/b>, specifically stating that he had told lies<\/b> at the time, whereas today he is telling the truth<\/b>. His change of heart provoked a strong reaction from the prosecutor<\/b> of the court, who spoke of mocking <\/b>the justice system <\/b>and requested that the witness be detained <\/b>after the conclusion of his testimony, in order to examine the possibility of filing charges <\/b>against him for perjury<\/b>.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, you are telling lies <\/b>here, and I will stop here, Mr. Chairman, the questioning and request that the witness be detained <\/b>after the conclusion of his testimony,\u201d stated the prosecutor.<\/p>\n
One of the judges<\/b> on the panel took a similar stance. When the witness attempted to justify <\/b>his change of stance by saying that \u201ctoday, here, I am telling the truth <\/b>because I have taken an oath on the Gospel, <\/b>whereas at the Security Police I did not take an oath,\u201d the judge remarked pointedly:<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, yes, you have taken an oath, and from the pressure you\u2019re applying with your hands, you\u2019re about to break the podium, and you\u2019ve turned pale.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n
The presiding judge <\/b>also directly challenged the witness\u2019s claim<\/b> that the details of his initial testimony were essentially dictated <\/b>by the police officers<\/b>.<\/p>\n
\u201cSir, look. If someone wasn\u2019t there and didn\u2019t know as many details as you testified to, <\/b>the police<\/b> couldn\u2019t have known them either. It\u2019s impossible for the police to have known exactly what each defendant <\/b>was doing inside and outside the stadium,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The witness replied, \u201cthey asked me questions and I answered them\u201d<\/b>, however, the presiding judge continued by reading excerpts from his preliminary investigation testimony, according to which he described in detail the movements <\/b>of specific individuals.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere you say that X. went outside before the incidents and supplied the fans with firecrackers <\/b>that he had in a black bag, while P.K. was breaking rocks and handing them out. You said all this,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n
The witness replied that he was under pressure and afraid <\/b>when he gave that testimony. \u201cI was afraid, I was anxious, and I said those things,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
The presiding judge, visibly concerned <\/b>by the complete retraction of the initial allegations, emphasized the significance <\/b>of what had been stated during the preliminary investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you had simply answered the police officers\u2019 questions<\/b>, your testimony would have been completed in an hour. <\/b>It appears here that it lasted about four hours.<\/b> Do you understand the seriousness of what you said? Based on what you testified, 13 people could have been sent to prison<\/b>, while some of them were remanded in custody <\/b>precisely because of your own allegations,\u201d he pointed out to him.<\/p>\n
The hearing continues in a particularly tense atmosphere,<\/b> with the court now called upon to assess both the credibility <\/b> of the witness and the serious contradictions between the two versions he has given of the events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tension and strong reactions were sparked during the trial for the murder of police officer Giorgos Lyggeridis by the testimony of a witness\u2014a soccer fan\u2014who, while …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11269","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\/11269","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=11269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}