Heartbreaking picture of his response operations room of the Coast Guard and the GEETHA at the time when citizens were in danger in Mati, but also for ELAS’s misjudgment in the first critical hours of the start of the fire, apologizing for the tragedy with 104 dead, the retired Fire Department officer, Filippos Pandeleakos, then director of Center for Civil Protection Operations.

The officer who faces the charge of “suffering” from informing the competent services about the fire, its evolution and Civil Protection actions, during his apology, apologized twice to the citizens and instead of another position, he chose to read in court all his recorded conversations Business Center with all the services and agencies involved that day: “That tragic day in Mati, tragic for everyone” as he said.

“The fire in Mati highlighted the shortcomings and the inability of the state to cope” said Mr. Panteleakos. The retired officer, referring to what happened that evening on July 18, 2018, said: “I apologize to the citizens that we could not do more. As it turned out, the state in the period before Mati, did not have the required preparedness to cope. On this particular day we tried to do our best”.

Through reading his conversations CEP with each service, which start from the start of the fire at Dau Pentelis a few minutes from the start of the fire before 5 pm and until late at night, the accused, depending on the degree of response of each person involved, essentially “showed responsibilities” of some but also singled out others, as he said, they acted as was appropriate in the context of their duties.

The conversations he read reveal a weakness mainly from the Coast Guard, which appears not only to be inactive in the repeated appeals of the KEPP for the removal of those trapped in a hotel and then citizens who had found themselves on the beach “hunted” by the fire, but also to misrepresent image. Through the communications in question read by the accused, it is also apparent the inability of the GEETHA to “save its own people”, as Mr. Panteleakos said, since at a critical time, the Staff seems to be in disarray, assuring that it is evacuating the facilities of Aviation in Zuberi, then to ask the KEPP if the evacuation is progressing and finally to ask for buses to evacuate 700 people, military families.

According to the accused, Police he did not inform them as he should, while he did not assess the whole situation correctly in the first year, as a result of which few policemen have been sent to the area, forces that were reinforced after 19.30 in the evening, when a total of 700 were found in the area. He said, however, that the policemen contributed significantly mainly to the regulation of traffic, so that they could quickly go to Neo Voutza with ambulances that were immediately made available to them by EKAV for preventive reasons, when they requested it in the first phase.

According to what he read during his apology, Mr. Pandeleakos, the operations room of the Coast Guard, while he had been informed of the existence of people trapped in a hotel in Matiou who had to be removed by sea, was idle for some time. In fact, from the dialogues, it appears that the operations room of the Coast Guard, which was repeatedly contacted by the KEPP, gave them a different picture than the real one, as it assured them that coast guards from Rafina and Lavrio have already been dispatched and that boats are rushing to the spot.

“We relayed the emergency to them, we were saying ‘SOS – SOS! What happened to the people in the hotel?’ and they would say ‘we will call you in a moment’. In these circumstances we were trying! We thought they would have responded – and at 9.15 in the evening we find that they had not responded, but only minimally. I will read you an indicative: We inform them that ‘boats are needed on the beach. Great need in Mati, many people have gathered, there are wounded, give us a picture.” Their answer? “At Mati is the APOSTOLIS STAR.” Now watch what I am going to tell you: They went on to say, “it is now starting from Styra and it will be after 22.30 in Mati!”. This is one of the reasons I expressed my apology to the citizens of the area,” said Mr. Pandeleakos in his apology.

Concerning the GEETHA, from the dialogues read by the defendant, it appears that he was unable to send 13 buses of 50 people to evacuate the Air Force camps in Zuberi, where there were 700 people, military personnel and their families. “I asked for it to be sent to me in writing from the Army, because I did not believe what I was hearing. I immediately informed my service about this condition. Shortly before 21.00, the GEETHA canceled the request for the buses. At the same time we learned from information, that there were still 60 people in the facilities in Agios Andreas. They had assured us that an evacuation had taken place.”

According to the accused, all the municipalities responded quickly to the situation as soon as the fire broke out, while the assistance of the Region was also good.

Earlier in court, the then head of 199 of the Fire Brigade, Christos Golfinos, had apologized, who defended his actions, stressing that all the decisions he made were those defined in his responsibilities.

“The wildfire plan was my Gospel. I’ll always say that about that day,” Mr. Golfinos said.

Choosing to refer to the victims, at the end of his apology, just before he stepped down from the podium, Mr. Golfinos tearfully told the court:

“I want to express my deepest condolences to the families of the victims. I have never in my career had an incident with loss of human life. I have been fighting with myself for five and a half years if I did something wrong.”

The former officer of the Fire Brigade, referred extensively to the events of that day, stressing that the fire in Kineta had preceded it since the morning. As he said, when the fire started at Daou Pentelis, he immediately sent 31 permanent and voluntary vehicles. “I have faithfully followed the 2018 forest plan. Mr Pragtagnomonas referred to the 2019 plan which is a different plan. Regarding the volunteer vehicles, I want to emphasize to you that in the 2018 forest plan they are normally included. Based on this plan, we could replace the official ones with the voluntary ones” he said in his apology and emphasized that throughout the day he was in consultation with the deputy head of the PS. and now his co-accused, Vasilis Matthaiopoulos.

The accused also noted that for the fire in Penteli there was also a second mobilization, where 8 other vehicles were sent, while he pointed out that on the same day, apart from Kineta, there were three other serious fires in north-eastern Attica, among which the fire in Kalamos, where 40 houses burned down and they were trapped in a hotel.

“At 18.45 we received a phone call from a hotel in Mati, where they informed us that there were 100 people there, including 2-3 with burns – and they wanted us to move them. We notified the operations center and our police liaison at ESKE to move citizens. At the same time we informed the officer on the spot, and told him and the police to approach the hotel. After a while they informed us that there were too many burnt cars and they couldn’t approach,” Mr. Golfinos described. In turn, he left he spikes for inaction by the Coast Guard, saying that “we asked for the Coast Guard booth to be mobilized. I can’t understand, there was so much smoke, the Coast Guard didn’t get word?”.

The defendant also responded to citizens’ complaints that they called 199 and it did not answer, saying: “On that day, citizens actually called, but due to the infrastructure of the call center, when a line was busy, it did not put the call on hold, but it seemed that rings and doesn’t answer. Now I know it’s on hold now.”

The process will continue on Friday, January 20.