The Consul General of Greece in Constantinople, Ambassador Konstantinos Koutras, described today as a day of great joy, as Dimitris Papadimitriou, whose fate was unknown since September 5, was located and reunited with his family.

Addressing representatives of the press and in the presence of the 78-year-old pensioner from Kozani himself, his son and granddaughter, the ambassador Const. Koutras stated that “all of us are very moved, primarily the family, his son and his granddaughter, with whom we have been in contact from the first moment, but also all those people from Greece who were worried and sent us letters and they wrote on social networks” as this whole effort was finally crowned with success.

The consul general of Greece clarified that today he was recognized by a taxi driver, who took him to a cafe and from the cafe they called the Greek consulate in Istanbul.

Mr. Koutras described the cooperation with the Turkish police as “not just perfect, but more than perfect” because, as he noted, “we were following the footsteps of Mr. Papadimitriou all the time, but his physical condition was so good that we could not reach him and to come to a point of seeing where he really ended his day.’

Consulate officials, Lena Katsis and Eleni Karamiti, were in daily, 24-hour communication with the Police, who showed them images from the cameras and followed Mr. Papadimitriou in his footsteps. “But you were in such good shape that they didn’t catch up with you” said Mr. Koutras addressing himself.

“It doesn’t matter what happened. What happened happened. He lost his bearings. The bottom line is that it was found. This is the important thing” he said and added that Mr. Papadimitriou will return to his homeland in the coming days by air, accompanied by his son and his granddaughter.

On September 5, in the afternoon hours, Dimitris Papadimitriou left a restaurant in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, where he was with the group, bound for the hotel in the same area where he was staying temporarily, but he never reached his destination and remained missing for nine days.