With the apology of the man who is charged with the fact that the fire he set to burn dry branches in Dau Pentelis, consumed the Eye, concluded before the Three-member Court of Misdemeanors public explanations of the 21 defendants for the tragedy that struck the country in the summer of 2018. Now, judges, defendants, advocates and victims, expect on February 13 to hear the prosecutor’s proposal for persons and actions.

In his apology Konstantinos Angelopoulos, who, according to the accusation, was the one who negligently caused the fatal fire, not only did he deny that he started the fire, but he also claimed that it was not started outside his house in Dau Pentelis, as the case file admits, but at another point.

As he stated at the beginning of his apology: “I didn’t start the fire. I don’t start fires, it’s not my negligence. I have a sacred oath! I’ve been up there 30 years and did I bother that day to start a fire? Burn down my house? If it’s possible!”, adding a little later that he “saw the fire coming” towards Dau, specifying the starting point of its course in Kallitechnopolis.

As for the cause of the fire, the accused resident of Dau Pentelis referred to “PPC pillars”while he noted that in the area “there are beekeepers, hunters, cars, passers-by, and there are also moto-cross races” as he mentioned.

The defendant said that on the day in question he was at his house until 12.30 noon, so he went shopping in Rafina, from where he returned at 16.20, a time “when I had not seen anything: neither smoke nor fire. While tidying up, just before five o’clock, I see smoke across my lot. I went up and got the tire. The fire hadn’t come yet, but it was coming… it was coming. I was making the walls wet. They were neighbors together and after a few minutes a volunteer Fire Department from Rafina showed up. At 150 meters I saw them and motioned for them to come. When they came they asked me and I filled them with water with the hose”.

To the president’s question if he had pruned that day, the accused said that he had been pruning since May and that he was gathering them in a place on his plot to call the municipality “once and for all” to receive them.

Invited to clarify his claim as to starting point of the fireThe accused he cited photographs showing two PPC poles “which is also a substation and they are burning at a distance of 700 meters from me… PPC had cables in a hanging arrangement… a wind was shaking them. The day after the fire, they came and laid them out in a horizontal arrangement. We also have the testimony of the former mayor of Penteli, Mr. Kapsalis, that he saw a cable on fire. And another witness said that the fire was in a different place than me. The first thing the Fire Department looked for was if I started something. But he found nothing.”

Prosecutor: In a non-fire season, did you start a fire?

Accused: Never! I understand that this makes jeez.

Prosecutor: Has a bystander ever walked by and started a fire?

Accused: The fire came from elsewhere.

Prosecutor: From where;

Accused: From Kallitechnopolis! Wireless communications also confirm this.

In his apology, the former mayor of Pentelis Dimitris Stergiou-Kapsalis, he denied the charges against himeven stating, as to the imputation, that he neglected to implement a civil protection plan, that “it is a tragedy that it is attributed to me that in my 30 years of career in the Self-Judgment I was fighting with half of the cabinet on these issues.”

Mr. Kapsalis, stating that he was the first public official to arrive at the scene of the Dow fire, said that “there was no negligence or omission. On the contrary, from my side there was my active participation in the suppression of the fire… we managed not only to have no victims, but to have only minor material damage in the Municipality of Penteli”.

Describing his transition ‘within the first five minutes’ as soon as he was notified, at the scene of the fire, the accused said that he found the chief fire officer there, whom he immediately asked “what are we doing? are we evacuating?” “I consider that the decision not to evacuate the Municipality of Penteli was correct… I spoke twice with the regional governor… I will tell you one thing. As soon as I see the Fire Chief on site I’m waiting for “to evacuate or not to evacuate”. No, my dears. We thought that the settlement should not be evacuated and we did so rightly. After so many years and dozens of fires, they are not saved by chance in Penteli… it is due to my experience… I have lived through fires for 30 years. I have never seen such a phenomenon before. When the fire threatened the Dau Pentelis monastery, I called Mr. Toska and told him: aerial! It was a process of war.”

Prosecutor: Do you know the defendant, Mr. Angelopoulos?

Accused: No, I don’t know Mr. Angelopoulos. He is my citizen. I have seen him twice in my office on other matters.

Prosecutor: Not even as a neighbor?

Accused: I know him by face, but let’s sit, talk, drink a wine, never.

With the start of the process today, Antonios Palpatzis, then Deputy Mayor of Civil Protection of the Municipality of Rafina-Pikermi, apologized, who he defended the actions taken by design by his fellow service workers. Stating that he was on leave that day and failed to return to Rafina on the night of the fire, as he was blocked from the toll road due to the fire in Kineta, the defendant said that “my office worked flawlessly and did not remain idle. What I had to offer in emergency planning and organization I offered. My house was saved by an English neighbor, because my children were helping with rescues on the beach.”