Not to perform surgery and not to participate in surgical operations until the trial of the case before the Mixed Jury Court, where it is referred, the competent Judicial Council decides, with its will, for the doctor accused of the death of 14-year-old Georgia from Epanomi Thessaloniki, after gastric band surgery in June 2021 because she was obese.

Considering two previous convictions of the same accused surgeon (one of which was overturned) for similar incidents after similar surgeries (laparoscopic), the judges of the Council of Misdemeanors of Thessaloniki decided to impose the above restrictive condition on him (apart from the financial guarantee imposed on him after his confession to an investigator), referring him at the same time on trial before the Criminal Court for the act of fatal exposure.

Tthe Council comes to the conclusion that there is a risk of committing new crimes on the part of the accused and indeed similar to those for which it is accused, for the prevention of which it is also suitable necessary to impose on him the restrictive condition of the prohibition of surgical operationsi.e. of any (direct) intervention on the human body for any cause as well as his participation in surgical procedures in any way, likewise until the final adjudication of the case.

The documentation of the restrictive condition

“The restrictive condition is considered suitable for the […] preventing the risk of committing new crimes, as his participation in the surgical procedure was the key condition for the performance of the acts attributed to him on his part. There are sufficient indications that he did them not simply and only in the general context of the exercise of his duties as a doctor but – if further – precisely while performing surgeries on his patients, who ultimately became the victims of his prosecuted criminal acts”refers to the referring will.

Continuing to document their reasoning, the judges of the Judicial Council point out: “Furthermore, it should be noted that of the measures that could be imposed to prevent the risk of committing new crimesthe ban on the accused from performing surgical operations is the mildest, taking into account the nature of the medical profession and the way it is practiced, compared to that of the general ban on practicing the medical profession, since it only concerns patients for whom immediate and imperative intervention on their body, presupposes the full exposure of the patient’s body to the doctor and does not include other medical procedures (e.g. clinical examination, diagnosis, prescription), while finally it is judged to be analogous in a narrow sense to the achievement of the purpose for which was imposed […] compared to the public interest, weighed on the basis of the expected criminal sanction, the gravity of the offenses attributed to the accused, the efficiency of the measure and the intensity of the evidence of the accused’s guilt”.

The accused doctor he had been released after pleading guilty last summer on the condition that he pay a bail of 10,000 euros, denying the act, whereas he is said to have claimed to have acted according to the rules of medical scienceciting his experience in such operations.

He forged the 14-year-old’s signature

For the case of 14-year-old Georgia, he himself is referred to trial – in addition – for the acts of forgery and embezzlement of a document, as a misdemeanor. The first, according to the indictment, is connected to the signature of the minor before the surgery which he allegedly forged, while the second with the visual material (video) from the operation, when this was requested by the parents of the minor in view of their appeal to the Criminal Court Justice.

The same doctor was sentenced in May 2022 by the Three-member Criminal Court of Thessaloniki to 4 years in prison (at 5 euros/day) for the death of a 24-year-old from Keramoti Kavala, following a similar operation, while for a similar case – with the death of a 42-year-old woman – he was sentenced to 3 years in prison, suspended, a sentence which has already become irreversible.