Father Antonios and four other defendants who were tried for the case of physical abuse of children hosted at the "Ark of the World" were found guilty today by the Three-Member Court of Appeals of Athens (second degree). The president of the court pronounced the verdict after a long evidentiary process. Today, however, when the decision was pronounced, all the defendants were absent from the bench.
With today's decision of the Court of Appeal, the priest was found guilty of more offenses than those he had been convicted of in the first instance. More specifically, in the second instance, Father Antonios was found guilty of 9 of the 19 acts for which he was tried, all of which were misdemeanors. In contrast, in the first instance, the priest had been convicted of five acts.
Specifically, the Court of Appeal found the priest guilty on a case-by-case basis of six acts of serious bodily harm to minors who were under the protection of the perpetrator, instigation of dangerous bodily harm to a minor, instigation of simple bodily harm and instigation of a threat.
By the same decision, the members of the second-instance court found four more associates of Father Antoniou guilty, including a former member of the administration of the Ark of the World, the former head of Volos educators and the former director of the structure in Volos. These defendants were found guilty of acts of grievous bodily harm, dangerous bodily harm, simple bodily harm, threat and exposure. On the contrary, the court fully acquitted two defendants in the case.
The court's decision on mitigating factors and then on the sentences is now awaited.
It is recalled that in a previous session, the prosecutor of the Three-Member Court of Appeal for Misdemeanors of Athens, Panagiota Symigianni, had asked the court to declare Father Antonios and four other defendants in the case guilty of specific charges amounting to a misdemeanor.
Finally, it should be noted that in the first instance, Father Antonios was sentenced to a prison sentence of 51 months (4 years and three months), while four of his associates were sentenced to prison sentences ranging from 17 to 40 months. Three of the convicted were granted a suspended sentence, while for Father Antonios and one other convicted person, the sentence was commuted to ten euros per day.
Source: protothema.gr
