The criminal investigation of the five ELAS officers who had a crucial role in the decisions regarding the management of the incident with the Croatian fans, who arrived by road in Athens and were allegedly involved in the fatal attack against Michalis Katsouri outside the AEK stadium in August 2023 , for a felony offense is requested by the Appellate Prosecutor’s Office.

The competent Appellate Prosecutor who was asked to rule on the view of the First Instance Prosecutor that the case, regarding the offense of dereliction of duty should be dismissed, not only disagreed with the dismissal, but requested that it be re-examined for a more serious offence. Specifically, the Prosecutor requests that the five officers be investigated for the possibility of committing the felony of fraudulently exposing themselves to danger and considers that criminal charges may be brought.

Thus, the file is returned to the Prosecutor’s Office of First Instance with an order to investigate whether there are indications of the commission of the crime requested by the Prosecutor of Appeals, which means that the five ELAS officers will be summoned to testify without trial, so that it can then be judged whether the conditions of the law are met to bring criminal charges against them.

The request of the First Instance Prosecutor’s Office to archive the investigation, which mainly concerned the misdemeanor offense of dereliction of duty, was based on the basic rationale that the offense cannot be established in the absence of malice on the part of the police officers under investigation.

The element of lack of malice was what led the public prosecutor who conducted the investigation to request archiving, although in her rationale she states that the audited ELAS officers did not act as they should have and “sometimes through omissions and sometimes through incorrect actions, they contributed to the creation of opportunities conditions, not only for Croatian fans to cross three countries (Montenegro, Albania, Greece), but also to enter Athens, to move unmolested by public transport, with their facial features covered and armed, to approach the AEK stadium in Perissos and lead to fights, arson and destruction, ultimately causing, among other things, the injury of several people and the fatal injury of one of its fans”

The public prosecutor’s office ruled that there were no sufficient indications of their having committed “any criminal act” and, in particular, of the misdemeanor act of dereliction of duty.

The Appellate Prosecutor considers that from the study of the evidence there are indications that establish the offense of criminal exposure. According to information, the opinion of the public prosecutor is that the police officers should be checked for the offense in question, which involves endangering life, to determine the existence of possible malice as a prediction of the occurrence of danger, which, if found, did not change the actions of the police officers who accepted the result. He also considers that even in the cases of fan injuries, the exposure is based on negligence.

The Prosecutor considers that the part of the case concerning the criminal responsibilities of the responsible bodies of the Traffic Police Department should be put on file.

The case of possible police responsibilities, for the entry and movement of Croatian fans of Dinamo Zagreb within the country, for which there were relevant warnings-marks, was forwarded to the Primary Prosecutor’s Office by the Internal Affairs Service in November 2023, so that a prosecutorial investigation could be carried out for the detection of non-criminal offenses such as breach of duty.