The trial of the former artistic director of the National Theater, Dimitris Lignadis, was postponed until March 21, 2025 today at the Mixed Jury Court of Appeal, sentenced in the first degree to 12 years in prison for two rapes of boys in 2015.

The postponement was requested by one of the three complainants for rape by Dimitris Lignadis. His lawyer Yiannis Vlachos argued that he had just been hired for a job in Sweden and could not be present to testify.

According to ERT, two of the four who have filed a lawsuit for rape appeared in court.

“It is tragic and dangerous to want to put someone in prison for rape because they did not serve us. This is deeply offensive to the victims of rape” said Dimitris Lignadis coming to the court.

The trial before the MoE was postponed, in November 2023, which had been granted due to the abstention of the lawyers.

The artist was initially sentenced to 12 years in prison for raping two boys in 2015, while he was acquitted of raping two others, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old.

The accused, after his conviction, is free with conditions as the trial court had granted suspension.

The ICC is being asked to judge almost from scratch the case of the famous artist, who is faced with the possibility of receiving a more severe criminal treatment with a longer sentence than that of the first trial. And this is because the MOE is asked to judge not only the appeal of the accused, but also the appeal filed by the Prosecutor’s Office of Appeals which requests a retrial of one of the two cases in which the first court declared the artist innocent, but also to examine whether or not the amount of the initial sentence is low.

The Appellate Prosecutor’s Office, with an appeal filed after the issuance of the MOD decision, ruled that the case of the 16-year-old must be re-examined. At the same time, he requests that the MOE evaluate the amount of the penalty imposed on Dimitris Lignadis, which, according to the Prosecutor who filed the appeal, is low in relation to the “depravity and gravity of the act, the damage it caused to the victims” etc.

Dimitris Lignadis, after 17 months of temporary detention, was sentenced in July 2022, as he was found guilty by a majority (4 to 3) for the rape of two 17-year-olds, in Athens and Epidaurus, in 2015.

The jury unanimously found the artist not guilty of the rape of an adult in 2018 and by a majority (5 to 2) of the rape of a 16-year-old minor in 2011. The alleged victim of the 2018 case had not appeared in court to testify.