“The moment I saw my wife and Nikos, my son for the last time, in the boat, I was sure that I would see them in Rafina. How will they be safe? They spent many hours at sea. I learned that the boat capsized. How they swam for hours to save themselves. The next day I saw their piles in the Port of Rafina”.
In the first testimony of a witness, who experienced the devastation of July 23, 2018 in Mati, losing his wife and 9-year-old child in the sea, the Five-Member Misdemeanor Appeals Court proceeded.
Korzeniofksi Jaroslav, the first witness, a Polish national who had come with his family on vacation to Mati, described what he experienced on the day of the fire. When he saw for the last time the most beloved people he had in life. As the witness tearfully reported, that afternoon when the hotel was engulfed in fire, no one from the Fire Department, the Police, or the Municipality was found to help them and the hotel employees did not know how to direct them. Instead, as he testified, they were telling them not to worry with the argument that since “only one plane is flying there will be some fire on the mountain”. He also said that what he encountered when he came out of the smoke-filled hotel was “like war. A wall of fire”.
As he said, “I was convinced that a rescue was taking place and that it would take them to the port of Rafina. I saw my wife shouting for me to get into the boat but I was afraid that the weight would capsize. I told her I’ll make it on my own and you leave,” he testified emotionally and continued: “At the time I saw them for the last time, there wasn’t much smoke in the sea. I was sure everything would be fine… I was happy that they were safe. My belief was even stronger because they were sailing alongside the coast, so I thought there was no danger.”
“I stayed on the beach with other people, screams were heard, palm trees were burning. Trees were falling on us. We saw big fire explosions, many cars were burning. I saw people burning, with fire on them, many on the street I don’t know if they were alive or not” he testified.
The witness emphasized that they were alone, there was no one from the state apparatus to help.
“The whole time I was trying to find people from the services to help there was no one, no firefighters, no police, no planes. We were left alone,” he said.
With tears in his eyes, the man, who comes to the memorial service in Mati every year “because it is my second home, since this is where I saw my family for the last time”, said that not only did no one from the state help after his loss, but he even offered his condolences.
“My life stopped the night of the fire”, he said crying and added that he can no longer sleep without pills, that he cannot work and is only waiting for the decision of the Court. “I have no other purpose in my life,” he emphasized.
In closing, the witness said: “I expect your court to judge that this was a felony and not a negligence” he said while crying and addressing the court he said: “I hope you will issue a just decision because the tragedy does not only involve the 104 victims but it is also everyone else with serious burns, but also the families who are living with nightmares they will never get over.”
Her own tragic story about the day she lost her parents in Mati was then described by the witness Vasiliki Koukla who, while the fire was going down, tried to approach the house where the two elderly people lived.
The witness recounted the frantic attempt to reach home, but also the frantic phone calls to the Fire Department without being able to connect. Finally, she said, she spoke to the local Pallini Department to ask for help for her helpless parents. They told her that they would be arrested. “My parents were waiting for help from the Fire Department, which never came. We were looking for them in Rafina. Around nine in the evening the boats arrived. The people coming out were in a very difficult situation. We didn’t find them. At 11.00 in the evening the Coast Guard ship came… it wasn’t there either. At five in the morning we got a call from the police and they said that they didn’t find anything at home. At nine in the morning my cousin told me that the Fire Department was looking for us because they found my parents charred in the kitchen and that I should go and sign. When I went, the police advised me not to go inside. All day we are there with the parents charred to wait for the Fire Department. A few days after the funeral, the Fire Department called and said there was a mistake and they gave us another man’s pile for my father. They wanted an exhumation to take place after consultation, without official notification and without an official burial. Of course we refused. It was exhumed by prosecutor’s order. And before and during and after it was without any respect to any of us. Nothing worked.”
Earlier, after the multi-day process of developing and discussing the objections of the defense of the accused who were acquitted in the first instance, against the appeal of the Prosecutor and the counter-argument of the Support of the Class, the court rejected the positions of the accused.
The judges, adopting the prosecutor’s proposal, ruled that the main and the supplementary appeal filed by the appeals prosecutor Spyros Pappas against the decision of the Three-member Court of Misdemeanors are admissible, with specific and detailed reasons. The court rejected the objections of the 15 defendants who were acquitted in the first instance, which mainly relied on insufficient reasons and also an overdue supplementary appeal filed by Mr. Pappas in application of a relevant provision of the Ministry of Justice which made it possible to complete the initial appeal for cases where the finalization of the first instance decision is delayed.
Thus, all 21 people who were referred from the beginning will be tried by the Five-Member Misdemeanor Appeals Court.
It is recalled that in the first instance, 6 of the 21 total defendants were convicted, with the court ordering, for the multi-year sentences, to serve the five years which it set in a sentence redeemable for approximately 10 euros per day. These are five former high-ranking officials of the Fire Department and the elderly man who set the fire at Dow Pentelis, who is on trial after his own appeal.
Source: RES-MPE
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