Elena Galari

The lawyers supporting the prosecution in the trial of the accused from Patras for the murder of her two youngest children requested that the testimony of the head of the Forensic Service, Angeliki Tsiola, who had drawn up the forensic report on the death of 6-month-old Irida, should not be taken into account.

Lawyers said the witness statement, which identified the cause of death of little Iris as sinus agenesis, is unreliable, as she has changed it three times.

The court accepted the defense’s request to present to the court the rag allegedly used by the defendant to block the child’s airways, adopting the prosecutor’s proposal.

To persistent questions from the President about the cause that could cause hypoxemia in the child, if there is no pathological factor, the witness answered that “some obstacle so that we have sufficient oxygen in the blood. Suffocation for example”, while in her testimony she referred to the communication she had with the child’s parents.

“They told me that they had a 3.5-year-old child who ended up being autopsied. They expressed their displeasure to me and told me that they had filed a lawsuit against whoever was responsible. I was told that Malena’s cause of death was liver failure,” the witness said, adding that she had received a call from the child’s parents about Georgina’s death as well.

“I received a call from the father of the child about the opposition of their eldest child (Georgina). I think he wanted to let me know because I had told them I would request genetic testing because we had a second death in the same family.

From the histopathological report, the cause of death was agenesis of the sinus node. The pathologist Antigoni Mitselos told me that she performed a procedure and concluded that the cause of death is the agenesis-hypoplasia of a sinus.”

President: Didn’t you call her to ask what she means by rudeness or hypocrisy? Was there no reason to find out what he meant?

Witness: I understood that at one point we had agenesis and at the other hypoplasia, I didn’t need to know anything else, the pathologist told me that it is extremely rare.”

President: You have the fact that the baby is perfect in appearance, the pediatric check-up is good and genetic testing does not find anything consistent with sinus agenesis, with these data today what cause of death would you give?

Witness: Undetermined cause of death.

President: In the interrogation you answered suffocation, what changed?

Witness: Then I was bound by the second pathogoloanatomist Eftychiadis, as I had been bound by Mitselos. The pathologist reached an official diagnosis, how can I dispute it?