The investigator of the tragedy in Mati who insisted on more serious charges against those responsible, is now facing a disciplinary investigation and an unfavorable transfer.<\/p>\n
Nearly eight years have passed since the deadly fire in Mati, in which 104 people lost their lives, 57 suffered severe burns, and 10 of the 21 defendants charged with responsibility for the tragedy received final convictions, a rumor is causing a stir that the investigating judge who fought to bring the guilty to justice is under investigation for\u2026 a disciplinary offense and is \u201cat risk\u201d of an unfavorable transfer!<\/b><\/p>\n
This refers to the president of the court of first instance Athanasios Marneris<\/b>, who shouldered the burden of the criminal investigation into a case that was difficult in every respect and found himself in the \u201ceye of the storm\u201d on more than a few occasions, when he submitted a request three times during the preliminary investigation to the competent prosecutor to upgrade the charge from a misdemeanor to a felony.<\/b><\/p>\n
The tragedy in Mati occurred on July 23, 2018<\/b>, and one year later, in his multi-page proposal, the prosecutor sought the indictment of 27 individuals as perpetrators of the offenses of multiple counts of negligent homicide and multiple counts of bodily injury<\/b>, among them were the chief of the Fire Department, the deputy chief, the secretary-general of Civil Protection, the then regional governor of Attica Rena Dourou, the mayor of Marathon, Ilias Psinakis, and the mayor of Rafina, Evangelos Bournous<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Mr. Marneris, after reviewing the case file that had been compiled and as the investigation progressed and he uncovered new evidence that shed even more light on the events, requested a total of three times that the charge be upgraded to a felony<\/b>, which involved endangering people with possible intent to cause harm, particularly regarding certain officials of the Fire Department and Civil Protection, citing new evidence based on statements from relatives of the victims, according to which \u201ccriminal omissions were substantiated, primarily regarding the management of aerial resources<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n
In all three of his requests, the investigator insisted that the omissions were primarily attributable to Fire Department officials, but also those of Civil Protection, across all three stages of the deadly fire: its outbreak, the management of firefighting efforts, and, finally, the rescue of those who survived the inferno\u2014and that was the reason he was seeking a promotion.<\/p>\n
Specifically, regarding his third and final request\u2014which, like the previous two, namely, to be rejected on the grounds that no new evidence had emerged to substantiate the felony charge, Investigator Marneris, with regard to the officials of the Fire Department and Civil Protection, noted, among other things:<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir positions made them aware of the danger<\/b> to which they were exposing the residents and visitors of the area, a danger they evidently accepted, since, although they had the opportunity to act differently, they did not. In other words, although they had the means and time at their disposal, they were naturally aware of the danger of the situation and, in fact, knew the specific characteristics of the area that made the danger to human lives immediate, they delayed action to such an extent that they demonstrated criminal indifference, which constitutes at least the form of possible intent, which is sufficient in the case of the criminal form of endangerment<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the Prosecutor\u2019s Office once again\u2014with a different prosecutor ruling on the investigating judge\u2019s request each time\u2014rejected it, emphasizing, among other things: \u201cIf the evidence required by law had been present, the Prosecutor\u2019s Office, especially in such a serious case, would have proceeded with the corresponding more serious charges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus, the defendants were indicted, tried, and convicted of a misdemeanor on appeal<\/b>, except that, following the appellate ruling, some went to prison while some of the original defendants had been unanimously acquitted and did not stand trial again.<\/p>\n
The judges of the Three-Member Misdemeanor Court of Appeals <\/b>a year ago found 10 defendants guilty on various counts of negligent homicide, negligent infliction of bodily injury, and negligent arson.<\/p>\n
As in the first-instance trial, the following were found guilty: Sotiris Terzoudis<\/b>, then chief of the Fire Department, Vasilis Matthaiopoulos<\/b>, then deputy chief, Ioannis Fostieris<\/b>, then head of the National Civil Protection Agency (ESKE), and Ioannis Kapakis<\/b> (then Secretary General of Civil Protection), who, however, were sent to prison as a result of this ruling, with the total prison sentence imposed on them amounting to 340 years, of which they will serve 5, as they were not granted the right to probation.<\/p>\n
Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, then commander of the Athens Fire Department, Charalambos Chionis<\/b>, then commander of the Eastern Attica Fire Department, and Konstantinos Angelopoulos<\/b>, the man in whose yard the fire started.<\/p>\n
In the appellate court, they were found guilty\u2014contrary to the first-instance ruling\u2014along with Christos Golfinos<\/b>, then director of \u201c199,\u201d Filippos Panteleakos<\/b>, then director of the Civil Protection Operations Center, and Damianos Papadopoulos<\/b>, then commander of the Nea Makri Fire Station, who was found guilty by a majority vote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The investigator of the Mati tragedy, who insisted on more serious charges against those responsible, is now facing a disciplinary investigation and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082","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=12082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}