“Curtain” today, Monday appellate trial for the fatal fire pthe eye in July 2018, in which they will meet again at all 21 defendants on trial for the tragedy left behind by the fire.

All those responsible at the time, from the Fire Department, the Region and the Local Government, who were charged with the deaths and injuries of the devastation marked by the Eye, will be tried again as after a prosecutor’s appeal against the first court decision, the Three-member Court of Misdemeanors will judge the unanimous acquittals for fifteen defendants as well as the amount of sentences for five convicted.

Apart from the prosecutor’s appeal, the sixth person convicted in the first degree, a citizen who was found guilty of causing the fire, will be tried on his own appeal.

The trial was determined quickly, almost three months after the first-instance court’s decision was issued, as the risk of the statute of limitations for potential criminal liability is pending, since the case must have been irrevocably decided, i.e. by the Supreme Court, until 2026.

The accusations against the twenty, then staff members of the competent services and agencies, concern 102 homicides by negligence, including the nine people who drowned in their attempt to escape from the inferno. They also concern 32 personal injuries due to negligence regarding the injured, survivors of the disaster who are present at the trial.

According to the decision of the Three-member Misdemeanor Court, which met with severe reactions initially in the courtroom but then in society and politics, the then chiefs and officers of the Sotiris Terzoudis Fire Department, Vassilis Matthaiopoulos, were found guilty, apart from the resident of Dau Pentelis. Ioannis Fostieris, Nikos Panagiotopoulos and Charalambos Chionis, for whom the final suspended sentence was set at five years which was converted into a fine of 10 euros per day.

The appellants are invited to evaluate the facts of the case and to decide at the end of the multi-month process that begins today, if the Three-member Misdemeanor Court correctly recognized mitigating factors for four former Fire Department officials and finally if it correctly imposed the penalties it chose on the convicted officers.

Under judgment is also the unanimous acquittal of the fifteen defendants. The court of first instance acquitted the officers of the Fire Department, Christos Golfino, Filippos Panteleakos, Damianos Papadopoulos, Christos Lampris, Christos Drosopoulos, Georgios Portozoudis and Stefanos Kolokouris.

He also acquitted the then ELAS Aerial Media Officer Charalambos Syrogiannis, the then General Secretary of Civil Protection Ioannis Kapakis, the then Regional Governor of Attica Rena Dourou and the then Mayors of Marathon Ilias Psinakis, Pentelis Dimitrios-Stergios Kapsalis and Rafinas-Pikermiou Evangelos Bournos as well as Deputy Mayors Vaios Thanasias (Marathona) and Antonis Palpatzis (Rafinas Pikermiou).

The 21st defendant in the case, a resident of Dau Pentelis, was sentenced at first instance to 3 years in prison for causing the fire and as he is not included in the prosecutor’s appeal, he will be tried with a request for a reduction of his sentence following his own appeal.

The Prosecutor’s Appeal, which brings the acquitted defendants back to the bench, was filed a few days after the decision of the Three-member Misdemeanor Court was issued, following a relevant order from the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Georgia Adelini. For the short determination of the Court of Appeal, with the intervention of the president of the Supreme Court, Ioannas Klapa, the president of the Misdemeanor Court that tried the case was released from any other duties, so that the decision could be written quickly and the trial could be determined immediately, as it happened.