With the apology of the 50-year-old accused meat trader, the trial continued, before the Court of Appeal, for the murder of the 59-year-old farmer Dimitris Graikos, whose body was found buried together with his car in a livestock farm in western Thessaloniki, in May 2019, two and a half years later his disappearance.

“I could not imagine that one blow can kill a person so easily“, apologized the 50-year-old who was sentenced in the first instance to life imprisonment. As he mentioned, there was a fight about debt who had the victim after a financial settlement between them, while he apologized to the rancher’s family for hiding his death for so long.

Amid reactions from relatives of the unfortunate butcher, the defendant described his own version of the murderous episode: “He started swearing at me and then he got pissed off and yelled more. He attacked me. Then he cursed my mother and grabbed me by the collar. Then I hit him, hard. With the right hand, with the palm on the left eye. I was 130 kg. I had never hit a person before. I was a strong child from a young age.”

He insisted that he only delivered one blow, stressing that the victim pulled him away and both men fell to the ground. “I fell on top of him. As soon as I stood up, I see him and he can’t get up. It was down, on the cement. My first impression was that he hit his head from the fall. I understood that he was unconscious, he was not responding,” he noted.

“That’s how I made the body disappear”

According to what he claimed, he then tried to give first aid to the 59-year-old, performing CPR. “I thought he would come back. I could not imagine that one blow could kill a person so easily. I had no hate, I didn’t want to hurt him. He said what he said and I did the great stupidity of hitting him” he apologized.

Regarding his actions in the disappearance of the body he said: “When I saw that he was dead, I thought what I will do. I saw the loader machine in front of me, next to the warehouse. I thought I’d make two pits to get them all out. So that it doesn’t appear that I hurt him, that I have killed him. At a distance of 50-60 meters, I opened two pits. One for the forgiven and one for the car. I threw the car in first and then the body. I went back to the milking parlor, took him in my hands and put him in the bucket of the machine. I threw the corpse into the pit and covered it with earth».

The trial will continue with the proposal of the District Attorney. The purchases of civil action and defense lawyers will follow, and then the verdict of the judges will be announced.