There was a lot of talk in the summer of 2019 about the bill promoted by the government for the new Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure and the changes that this will bring in the future. After the passage of the bill on 6/6/2019 the new bill is expected to enter into force on 1 July 2019.
The move of the then SYRIZA government to promote for a vote in the plenary session of the Parliament this legislation provoked a multitude of reactions while it was received by the opposition parties. The spearhead was the amendment of law 1608/50 on public abusers.
Even the The Union of Greek Prosecutors spoke of "a statute of limitations for serious corruption cases which have been characterized as scandals and are ongoing. As lawyers commented, while the legislator provides that while those who commit forgery, false testimony, embezzlement, fraud and infidelity against the public are punished with a felony and sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison, the same is not the case with bribery. - bribery. These are offenses that are synonymous with the "starter" and their downgrading to misdemeanors is considered certain that it will blow up emblematic lawsuits related to "black money".
In Greece, however, criminal cases and crimes that have been described as heinous have become statute-barred, or are on the verge of statute-barring. 20 years. This is the time required for a criminal offense to become statute-barred in the event that the perpetrator is not brought to justice in order to be tried and convicted. Including crimes punishable by life imprisonment.
Below we will study three cases murders which shocked both with the savagery that characterized them and with the fact that the perpetrators may circulate among us.
A 37-year-old and his 17-year-old nephew face two large men entering the jewelry store maintained by the first on the street Patision.
It was a hot afternoon in July 1983. In front of dozens of witnesses, 37-year-old jewelry store owner Stamatis Kontogiannis and his 17-year-old nephew, Christos Tsakalos, were executed in cold blood.
Dozens of testimonies from passers-by, customers or owners of nearby stores about how the attack took place. According to the police, the target of the men was the safe that hid jewelry of great value.
The duo of killers allegedly entered the store pretending to be customers. When they finally revealed their intentions to Kontogiannis and his nephew, they took out their 45 arias and asked for the keys. When the two men refused then the perpetrators without hesitation executed.
After fatally hitting the 17-year-old - who died instantly - and seriously injuring the owner of the business, they fled, firing continuously to clear the way and get as fast as possible to the motorcycles of their two accomplices, who were waiting for them with the motorcycles. , 50 meters away from the store.
The bloody robbery had in common with another armed raid that took place fifteen days ago in jewelry store of Lenorman. Witnesses were shown photographs of foreigners, Egyptians, Italians and Spaniards who had previously been involved in robberies and drug trafficking.
The police turned to organized circuits that had robberies and drug trafficking in their palmare. The case file has been opened several times over the years, each time a similar attack took place, but to no avail.
One of the most shocking crimes in the criminal history of Greece was committed in June 1991 in the region of Ekalis. The descriptions of those who saw the four corpses in the villa of horror are terrifying:
The bodies of the members of the Chrysafidis family were found in separate rooms in the basement of the house covered with blankets and towels. The scene spoke for itself.
The four victims had been strangled, tied up and beaten severely before be killed. And all this with their wounds betraying that their killer executed them in a horrible way, using "heavy" weapons to break their skulls and bones. The body of 16-year-old Michalis-Dimitris Chrysafidis was in a worse condition, who was found with a broken chest and severe injuries to the head and body caused by a sledgehammer.
The worst fate, however, before she died, seems to have been the British mother of the family, Liz. The woman was forced to watch the murder of her husband and children while she was raped and abused in every possible way before she ended up dead on June 23.
The chronicle, according to the investigations at the time, reported that three days after the disappearance, on June 20, the children were killed, followed by the husband and father on the 21st of the month and lastly the mother. The perpetrators did not try to get rid of the weapons of the quadruple murder as they were found cursed in the basement. It was an ax, a ballad and a sledgehammer. A bloody ax was also found in the basement.
Investigations revealed that the safe was full of nothing but money and some jewelry.
For seven whole days the members of the family of the industrialist Chrysafidis had not given signs of life and the last news they had heard came from the lips of the Thai Prasert Sertuasana, who worked at home as a butler.
On June 18, 28-year-old Tai, as he was called, informed, in a telephone conversation with Chrysafidis associates, that the family was missing on vacation and would return on the 28th of the month.
The suspicions immediately turned to the trusted butler of the family from the moment he did not answer his phone. Evidence from forensic investigations showed that the family was tortured for 4 days before he was finally murdered. For the police, this referred to a mafia attack
Tai had married his beloved Wazita, who worked at the Pouliassi family home in Vari. All the testimonies contributed to the fact that Prassert Sertuasana tried to save time, lying that the family had gone on vacation. As the police tried to unravel the tangle, however, it appeared that the dates did not coincide with those of Sertuasana's trip.
Authorities considered it possible that the perpetrators involved the 28-year-old and his fiancée and allowed him to disappear before they completed their "project". That's why, after Tai's departure, many of his personal belongings were found in the house.
Greece has not signed a legal aid agreement with Thailand, with the result that Prasert Sertuasana was never extradited to Greece, in order to give explanations for the case.
When the authorities discovered a handwritten note by Chrysafidis that said that his property remained with his nephew, the eyes turned to him without proving any involvement in the murders.
1991 seems to have been a pretty intense year for homicides. Shortly before the massacre in Ekali, a double murder had shocked the public.
Maria Nika, 27, and her 30-year-old fiancé, Merchant Marine Lieutenant Commander Stefanos Stefanou, were found brutally murdered on January 20, 1991, a short distance from their car, which was found in a nearby parking lot. The bodies of the unfortunate couple had been dragged all the way out of the Temple of Poseidon at Sounio.
According to police, the perpetrator took the couple by surprise and first shot the sailor, who was found lying on his back near the passenger seat, hitting his thigh and armpit on his right side. The 27-year-old had been shot in the driver's seat and had injuries to her left shoulder and neck.
The deadly weapon was a carbine that was stolen from a house in Melissia 2,5 months ago. However, the fact that neither the fingerprints nor the DNA of the perpetrator were found showed that the "job" was completely professional. Police found the rifle in the sea days later, along with the 27-year-old's personal belongings.
The 3-year-old sailor was found without some of his clothes while his partner was wearing her blouse. Thoughts that the murder was a sexual crime were not ruled out. However, in practice, the case remained as one where the victims were probably in the wrong place at the wrong time, witnessing some criminal deal that έπρεπε should not have had witnesses.