Today’s testimony at the Three-member Court of Misdemeanor Appeals was also heartbreaking, where among other witnesses on the witness stand there were two people experiencing extreme pain. Two parents who still can’t believe that they lost their children on the afternoon of July 2018 when time stopped for them in Mati.

Athena Moutafi saw before her eyes to lose her son in the seashe watched him move away and she with struggle and agony she struggled and managed to save her daughter. “As soon as I put her in the boat I didn’t want to be saved, I wasn’t happy to be saved” said the witness who described unimaginable scenes with people fighting to stay alive while remaining helpless in the sea for hours.

Earlier, Ioannis Filippopoulos broke hearts when he described that the his twin baby girls were lost along with their parents in the estate of Frank in the hell that surrounded the Eye. “All four were found hugging. My mother below, the girls in between and my father above” he testified devastated.

And during today’s meeting, an image of complete inaction of the state apparatus emerged, but also of unimaginable actions and omissions in every phase of the tragedy.

Yes, yes tension was caused in court today as well when during Mrs. Mutafi’s testimony, the accused asked for an excuse, trying to explain that there was a problem with visibility due to the smoke and that’s why he didn’t fly a helicopter while dozens of people were at sea. The report of the accused caused the explosion of the daughter of the witness who has not managed to recover from the loss of her brother who she saw him floating beside her in the sea. The girl experienced the complete absence of any structure that could help them.

“The only thing he did the state apparatus was that it did nothing… I am not exaggerating because I lost my child. So is! If they had done everything right, they would not have extorted the expert nor would there have been any falsification of evidence” Athina Moutafi, charged in her testimony, who asked for justice from the court, said:

“We beseech you to do your duty and spare us the pain. Only you can do that.”

Mrs. Mutafi described the moments she lived in the stormy sea where she found herself with her son Viktora and her daughter Vasia chased by fire and smoke.

“The waves were huge. They were hoodwinking us. Tmy concern was not to get lost with the children and to be close. After two or three waves I could see Vasia but not Victor. After him I saw face down. The child was gone. Vasya wanted us to take him along. Every parent’s worst nightmare! I lived him in front of me. I had to leave my child. I saw my child disappear in front of me torturously and I had to leave him in the sea to save my other child. We were very tired. At one point I took off my bra and I tied my hand with my child’s hand so that we would not be lost. We are in the ocean alone. Then we met with some others and joined. More floating corpses were coming. What you see in the movies, we experienced in reality.

At one point we saw lights from a fishing boat. I just put my kid in the boat, me I didn’t want to be saved! I felt no joy at being saved. We went out to Rafina at twelve. They took us out to the harbor naked and barefoot. They took our names and then left us alone. Eight days later my child was found.”

With a broken voice, Mr. Filippopoulos recounted not only the unbearable pain from the loss of his two 9-year-old children and his parents, but also the incredible behavior with which his dead and his pain were treated.

“We held a second funeral again because the mother’s feet were found my further away on a different day… They gave me my parents to bury but they wouldn’t give me the children because they couldn’t tell them apart and we did it based on casts from the armpits that my wife had kept” testified the witness in absolute silence.

As he said: “I was told that girls died earlier because they had smaller lungs. And my parents died afterwards. They all hugged together… The fire surrounded them and that was it. And I have to put up with all this! To live with what you don’t live!… When everyone goes on vacation I go to the cemetery. I was deprived of my children’s hugs. I asked them to seal their coffins and I didn’t leave anyone… I lowered my children’s coffins into the grave.”

The witness emphasized that his parents and little girls would live “if they had not also sent them to the death trap inside the Eye…”.

The trial will continue on August 26.