Appeal
After the exculpatory will of the Athens Criminal Council of October 2023, which essentially acquitted – among other people – the 42-year-old son of the “mastermind” of the case, Mario’s mother, Varvara Theodorakis, and her lawyer, Mr. Nikos Roussopoulos , appealed to the Appellate Prosecutor, who filed an appeal against the council and the competent Appellate Council ruled that the 42-year-old should be tried for complicity in the kidnapping and murder of 26-year-old Marios. Thus, although everything seemed that the case would remain in the file, twelve years later comes the reversal, with which the trial of four people is requested.
With the resolution numbered 1216/2024 of the Council of Appeals of Athens, which was issued on September 25, 2024, the son of P. M. will sit on the bench with the charge of participating in the kidnapping of Marios Papageorgiou.
According to the main points of the will, the defendant was aware of his parents’ plan to kidnap Mario in order to demand a ransom of 620,000 euros. He was the last person Marios spoke to on the phone before his abduction and murder, something the 42-year-old never mentioned, hiding it.
It is noteworthy that the accused retired State Security police officer maintained constant communication with his parents, informing them, due to his position in the Police, of everything related to Mario’s case.
Characteristically and as stated in the will of 330 pages, “…the accused intentionally provided assistance to others before and during the commission of the wrongful act of robbery with complicity which they committed and specifically knowing the plan to trap and kidnap Marios Papageorgiou that his father had processed with the assistance of his mother provided them and their co-authors with material assistance by talking to the patient on the evening of August 9, 2012 on his mobile phone in order to identify his local stigma and strengthen his transition to predetermined meeting place where he would be arrested – carrying out the last conversation with the abductee – and granting the use of a car with fake license plates that his own father used to drive around in order to serve the criminal purposes of the other party mental assistance with the cover-up action that took over throughout the abduction spreading rumours, preventing relatives and friends of the abducted person from immediately appealing to the Police Authority urging the payment of a requested sum of money and above all failing to do so even though by virtue of his status he had a special legal obligation to act, namely to inform the Authorities and to guide in securing the convictions and traces of the crime…”.
Also, as stated in the court document, he learned from his father the exact location of Mario’s car, which he then reported to the victim’s boyfriend of 15 years, while he had repeatedly prevented Mario’s friends from contacting the 26-year-old’s mother and to address the prosecuting Authorities, telling them that his father advised Mario’s mother to contact the Police, although in reality the opposite was the case.
In addition, due to his position in the Police, he immediately informed his parents as soon as Mrs. Varvara Theodoraki informed the Police Authorities about her child’s abduction, while “due to his position in the State Security, he became aware of confidential pre-investigative material”. At the same time, he was the one who had threatened, in September 2021, witnesses who had testified during preliminary investigations “not to involve his mother”.
“To finish”
Finally, he urged Mario’s family to give the ransom “so that we can finish”, as is characteristically mentioned in the will. Let us remind you that the chronicle of the case begins on the evening of August 9, 2012, when the traces of 26-year-old Marios Papageorgiou were lost, when he left in his car from Diakopto of Achaia, where he was on vacation with his mother, for Aigio. A few hours later his mother receives a phone call from a stranger, who tells her that her child was involved with drugs and owed money and to see him again she would have to give the amount of 620,000 euros as a ransom. The call had been made from a payphone that P.M. had gone to with an accomplice, whom he had arranged to speak to Mario’s mother.
THE CRIMINAL PLAN
Repeated blows to the head with a fire extinguisher
According to the court document, the perpetrators killed the unfortunate 26-year-old by repeatedly hitting him on the head with the car’s fire extinguisher, resulting in the loss of a significant amount of blood, and trapped him, during his last moments of life, in the trunk of the car in the position of the reserve. The “brain” of the criminal organization had given an order, after receiving Mario’s body from the secret location on Mount Kithairona, where it had been deposited after the murder, to transport it with every precaution and burn it in an area between Kameni Vourli and Lamia , in an old furnace or an old quarry. They then tried to eliminate the traces of the crime from the 26-year-old’s car by carrying out biological cleaning, but the private investigator, appointed by Mario’s mother, discovered the blood stains in the reserve area, where the perpetrators had placed Mario’s body.
NIKOLAOS ROUSSOPOULOS (LAWYER): “Justification is coming, 12 years later”
In his statement to “ET” on Sunday, the attorney of the mother of Marios Papageorgiou, Nikolaos Roussopoulos, reported on the development of the case: “After 12 years, justice is coming in a much-lauded case, and we hope that with this development, this case can finally be resolved an unprecedented case in Greek history. Unfortunately, 12 years later, the Greek Justice comes to cover up failures and errors of the police investigation”.
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