Before the Mixed Jury Court of Appeal of Thessaloniki, which is called upon to definitively reflect the judgment of Justice, the much-lauded murder case of 19-year-old Alkis Kampanoswho was a victim of blind fan violence, on February 1, 2022, in the area of ​​Harilaou.

They will sit on the bench of the Court of Appeal twelve young fans of PAOKwho after the decision of the court of first instance returned to prison, seven of them having been sentenced to life imprisonment and in addition to multi-year sentences as accomplices to murder with possible intent and the remaining five to temporary prison sentences as simple accomplices in the same act.

Essentially, however, the trial – once it is declared to begin (it is expected that requests for postponement will be submitted) – will start for most of the defendants from scratch, without the Court being bound by the verdict of the judges of the first instance (Mixed Jury Court of Thessaloniki). And this is because the former head of the Appeals Prosecutor’s Office of Thessaloniki, Nikos Kallides, had filed an appeal against the decision, in July 2023, a few days after the “curtain” fell on the first instance trial, asking for higher penalties to be imposed.

Finding the decision to change the charge to manslaughter wrong, the senior prosecuting officer held that the defendants should be convicted of manslaughter as originally charged. In addition, he considered that three of the defendants should not be convicted of complicity, but one of moral complicity in first-degree murder and the other two for second-degree complicity in the same first-degree murder. The appeal does not touch two of the defendants and practically only for them the principle of non-deterioration of their position applies.

In addition to the murder of 19-year-old Alkis, the indictment includes the acts connected to the attack against his two friends, during the same bloody episode that “froze” the Panhellenic nation.