A 34-year-old woman, prosecuted for having killed her three daughters in three years, is on trial from Monday in Athens, a case which has sparked an outburst of anger in Greece, where the mother of the family is sacred, according to experts.
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In pre-trial detention in a high security prison, Roula Pispirigou responds to “attempted premeditated intentional homicide” and “premeditated intentional homicide” on his eldest daughter before the Athens Assize Court.
She is accused of having, on January 29, 2022, poisoned Georgina, 9, by administering her ketamine, a substance used mainly in veterinary surgery as an anesthetic and analgesic.
Since last August, the young woman has also been prosecuted for the murders of her two other daughters, Malena, 3 and a half years old, in 2019, and Iris, 6 months old, in 2021, but this separate procedure, launched following the death of Georgina, is still under investigation.
His lawyer Alexis Kougias should demand the merger of the two files at the opening of the proceedings on Monday and an adjournment of the trial, according to a judicial source.
At the time of her death, Georgina was in the hospital where she had made several stays since in April 2021 convulsions had left her quadriplegic. The prosecution accuses the mother of having already tried to kill her child.
Second child Malena was initially pronounced dead of liver failure and Iris of cardiac arrest, but new forensic reports following Georgina’s suspicious death revealed they died of asphyxiation.
Ms. Pispirigou, a nurse by training, nicknamed by the Greek media “the Medea of modern times” or “the Medea of Patras”, the city from which she is native in the west of Greece, maintains her innocence since her arrest in March 2022 .
This alleged triple infanticide, in a country where this crime is rather rare, aroused fury and great media unpacking.
Last April, the Greek government had to call for “calm” in the face of calls for murder made once morest Roula Pispirigou and urged the population to let the investigators do their job.
Shortly following her arrest, the defendant, flanked by heavily equipped and helmeted police officers, was protected by a bulletproof vest during her chaotic arrival at the Athens courthouse.
Riot police had also been deployed as the roaring crowd jeered her with cries of “Slayer, confess your crime”.
Among the demonstrators, a woman assured on television: “If she actually did that, you have to hang her. That’s all!”.
On the facade of his home in Patras, in front of which an angry crowd had also gathered, unknown people had written: “death to child killers”.
These popular outbursts are partly explained by the status of mothers in Greece, although patriarchy remains one of the hallmarks of Greek culture despite progress in recent years.
“We have a (particular) harshness towards infanticidal mothers, because we remain with representations and ideals around motherhood”, assures AFP the psychologist and psychoanalyst Sophie Marinopoulos, specialist in infanticidal mothers.
“The mother must sacrifice herself for her children and not sacrifice her children. In the Mediterranean countries, it is very strong”, she adds.
“People cannot excuse the fact that she killed, according to the prosecution, not one, but three children and this at different times,” adds Effi Lambropoulou, professor of criminology at Panteion University in Athens.
The private television channels are also singled out, they who did not hesitate to question the accused by telephone from her prison.
The father of the girls and the mother of Roula Pispirigou have also multiplied the testimonies to the media.
Televisions “focus above all on the emotions of the viewers”, explains Ms Lambropoulou. “This information is then found, exaggerated, on social networks where there is not the slightest control”, deplores the specialist.
Roula Pispirigou, long bleached blond hair, herself contributed to this tornado even before her arrest “by calling” the televisions herself “or by agreeing to be interviewed with her husband”, according to Effi Lambropoulou.
