By Ioanna Mandrou

Hastily in the summer, the new trial for those responsible for the tragedy in Mati was set, as the risk of the case being statute-barred and no one being punished is now not only visible, but also immediate.

After the appeal brought by the appellate prosecutor Sp. Pappas after the decision of the first degree caused a storm of reactions for its leniency and the impunity that the court essentially reserved for the accused, now there will be a new trial in the second degree (appeal court).

The trial will take place in the summer, set for July 8, without interruption, not even in August, in order to make every effort by justice to prevent the statute of limitations for any responsibility for the unspeakable tragedy as the case is statute-barred in July 2026 and until then the following must have been done.

That the trial at the Court of Appeal, which will take place again with 20 defendants, is finished and that all the proceedings at the Supreme Court are also finished, a fact that is considered very difficult, if not impossible, considering that up to now six entire years to issue a decision only in the first instance!

In the new trial that will begin in July, 20 high-ranking officials of the state apparatus, Fire Service, Civil Protection and Coordination Center and self-administration agents, two mayors of the region and the then regional governor will be tried from the beginning.

That is, all those who were also accused in the first trial, regardless of whether some were acquitted or convicted, as the appeal that was brought effectively completely overturned the decision of the first instance.

Thus, in the new trial, all 20 defendants will be tried, except for the elderly man who is charged with the serious criminal act of setting the fire which was expanded with the known tragic results afterwards due to a lot of wrong handling and omissions on the part of those responsible. The defendant in question was sentenced in the first instance to three years in prison and for him it was not possible – according to the law – to appeal, so he will not be tried again.

The appeal made included everything. And the acquittals and convictions, and the mitigating factors that were recognized and the conversion of the penalties into monetary ones.

In particular, the decision of the first degree referred to convictions for only six of the 21 defendants in total, and for sentences that were five years for the high-ranking government officials and three years for the elderly person who set the fire. The court also recognized mitigating factors and finally proceeded to convert the penalties into money, which was the “icing” of the anger against this decision.

Let us recall here that the court of first instance sentenced only five high-ranking officials of the Fire Department and the Coordination to five years in prison for 102 negligent homicides and 32 negligent bodily harm, both the dead and the burned, while it sentenced to three years the old man who committed the criminal act of setting the fire that spread with the then disastrous results multiplied exponentially by the heap of state acts and mainly omissions.

Of the total of 21 defendants who arrived at the bench, only 6 were found guilty with the aforementioned penalties, while the court then proceeded to convert their penalty into money, determining the conversion to 10 euros per day!

However, until now, justice has been burdened by unjustified delays in the interrogation stage that led the case six years after the tragedy and the hundredth death to a first-degree decision, while the first-degree trial, despite the honorable efforts of the court, lasted a total of 19 months to reach a decision that was virtually completely overturned by the prosecutor’s appeal.

The then initiative of the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Vasilios Pliotas, to assign from the beginning the investigations to an appellate investigator, as was done in Tempi but also in all serious cases, was unfortunately rejected at the time and the investigation then became entangled in a vortex of delays and inconclusive requests .

Of course, the occurrence of the statute of limitations in such a tragedy will mean a setback for our judicial system and for the rule of law, while already the justice with the manipulations of certain judges is charged with the failure to proceed quickly with the investigations and to arrive at a trial in time, while great responsibilities are now attributed in the justice system to the manipulations of the investigator and his insistence that prosecutions be carried out in the degree of felony, something that legally did not stand and would not lead to convictions and which was repeatedly rejected by the prosecutor’s authorities and all the judicial councils.

But, it led to huge delays in the investigation and subsequent proceedings.