At the beginning of his conversation with the journalist, referring to the trial in Mati, he noted “there has been a trial which lasted too long, because there were too many defendants, which took place based on a legal framework that we all know. And what is this? That in criminal cases the court shall take into account and try the accused before it, not on the basis of the current and applicable criminal law – the Penal Code in this particular case provisions of the Penal Code – but the most favorable law that has been passed and which it may have been repealed in the meantime, until the judgment is rendered.
Mind you what I say may have been repealed, but the most favorable law applies. So, this court and these judges tried based on the Criminal Code, which the SYRIZA government had passed.
At that time I was a Member of Parliament and I had reacted and you know very well – two to three days before the dissolution of the Parliament and I have said, I have taken a position on this issue repeatedly, that it was a process of entanglement concerning specific situations”.
Asked afterwards, whether these people were actually judged on the basis of a law that is the result and product of collusion, Mr. Kontonis underlined “I believe that the collusion concerned specific offenses and I had spoken about bribery which had become active bribery from a felony to a misdemeanor, while passive bribery had remained a felony. That’s why I’m reporting. But the issue is that the changes that were made until the last one did not affect the legal framework. In other words, here again the Parliament did not see anything that needs to be changed. Therefore, these defendants were tried under this law. In other words, justice could not impose anything else. I will not tell you more that I was deeply impressed by the fact that some, I think also political figures, referred to the acquittal judgment of the court for some of the accused”.
“The tragedy was huge,” the lawyer and former Minister of Justice, Stavros Kontonis, noted at the end of Thanos Siafaka, while pointing out the following “but the issue is how these people are tried, based on which law, based on which provisions. So these lives were lost here, and of course that is tragic, but these people were also brought to the dock based on an indictment and based on the legislation that was most favorable to them at that particular time. So, I think, that he could not change the context of the sentence (…). The judgment will be decided in a second degree where nothing may change or something may change as to guilt or acquittal, the guilt of some who were acquitted, or the acquittal of some who were convicted. Considering”.
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