“Those people who were burned in the area we call the “Jungle” were lying, left in the street until the next morning at seven because the authorities had to make a contract with a certain funeral home first. Six years have passed and we have not found out why the Police is not here, why the Forest Service is not here. We did not find out why the lawsuit we filed against the then ministers Tosca and Skourletis was never discussed in the Parliament».

Aristides Cherubeim, who testified first today in the trial for Mati, lost his mother, sister and twin 5-year-old nieces that day.

The witness appears only for his mother and sister, as although he is the only relative of the two missing girls, he does not have the right to appear because of the third degree of consanguinity (the law allows for first and second degrees). In fact, closing his important testimony, Mr. Cherubim said: “I think it’s unfair that I can’t represent the girls. I will do everything I can to turn this around».

At the trial, witnesses testified that they lost their own people, many of them having escaped with serious burns. Once again, the image they brought to the court was the complete absence of any authority but also in many cases their treatment by service employees during the hours when the havoc had spread in Mati with absolute cruelty.

Mr. Cherub described images of chaos, cynical treatment but also the lack of competent services to deal with the tragic situation both during the fire and after, for the appropriate management of the situation. Indicatively, as he pointed out, “they didn’t even send enough bags for the dead. The firefighters were fighting because there weren’t enough bags for the piles.”

As the witness testified, his four relatives were burned shortly before seven in the afternoon, a few meters away from their house in the Jungle area, and he emphasized that if they had been informed about the course of the fire, they would have been saved.

“If my family had been informed at half past six and six, they would have been saved. They started to leave at half past six and headed for the hill. Soon after, they were burning together with a couple trying to get away. When my family and the couple were burning, it was the first time that the Civil Protection Operations Center of the Fire Department contacted the Municipality of Marathon. How long after the fire started. There is an audio of policemen informing that “there is a problem in the settlement of Jungle” and no one moved. The next day the bodies were burning and being picked up again and again and when some told firemen to put them out they replied “what shall we put out now?”. I took the piles of white because they put them out with the fire extinguisher of the rescue car».

The witness expressed the opinion that the Fire Department had a full picture of the danger of the fire from 17:15 as the coordination helicopter informed that “the fire goes towards N. Voutza. They therefore knew that people were in danger. And nobody does anything. They knew what was going to happen and that’s why no one took charge…».

He also testified his belief that the fire started at four in the afternoon and not at 4:40 p.m. as stated by the Fire Department. He also emphasized that even at the time they say it had started, there was at least 50 minutes for people to leave.

“In the same time, fifty minutes, they removed people from Kineta. They didn’t do an organized evacuation there. They were notified by patrol cars to leave. Nothing happened to Mati! Not a single bell rang. In the first court, when an official of the Fire Department was asked why the bells were not rung, he answered “why did we have a celebration?”. The leader and the deputy leader did not come, so for the eyes of the world, to the area neither that day, nor the next day».

Mr. Cherubim wanted with his testimony to provide answers to “what has been heard since the first night”. Thus countering claims of “narrow roads that prevented the passage of large fire engines” he showed photos of roads saying “concrete mixers pass here».

A little later tension was caused in the court when a witness who has lost his daughter in the fire was called and without having spoken, the president gave the floor to the prosecutor for questions and then to defense lawyers.

The witness Angelos Siapkaras, crying and shouting, told the president: “I feel that I am in the wrong place, just as my daughter was in the wrong place and with the wrong people to manage the situation. This was her misfortune. Those who should have done nothing.”

President: Why do you say that?

Witness: Why won’t you let me speak?

President: Of course you can speak

Witness: You didn’t leave me. I’m a big person. I may not be able to talk about my child again, may not be able to catch up. 140 steps from the sea was lost.

I count them every year at the memorial service. Do you understand what I’m saying? All these did not save a single person.

They are irrelevant to their work, to the task they have and they are already promoting them. None of them have gone to jail and they throw it at each other. And we broke up. After nine days they sent us a covered coffin. I don’t even know what was in it. Her brother went the next day and collected his sister’s bones. There was a complete lack of any concept of a state. But if you want, you have the way. You can and should try to understand us and do justice

The witnesses pointed out the responsibilities of the municipalities for their negligence in removing fuel from plots and roads, while many again emphasized the “fatal information” that the then mayor of Rafina, Evangelos Bournous, had given to the media, who had said that the Eye was not in danger. recommending that residents do not go out on the streets to facilitate the Fire Department.

“My mother would have been saved if the radio in my car had been turned off. The exhortation to Burnous that the inhabitants should not come out deprived me of the right to save it. The first instance decision makes me ashamed to go and light the candle for herNikos Yiannopoulos said characteristically.

The prosecutor asked Angeliki Konstandakis, a burn victim who lost her mother, how she would feel vindicated and the woman answered:

“We would feel justified if everyone who was supposed to be here was here. Policemen, Coast Guard. That would be a justification. All those responsible should be judged. Let everyone pay with what belongs to them. We don’t want the innocent to be tried, but the guilty. In all these years, not one came out to say “I made a wrong assessment”. We would understand. We are all human. We haven’t even heard an apology».