According to his lawyer, Vassilis Noulezas, 89-year-old, who on 28 April caused a shooting rampage at EFKA and on Loukareos Street injuring five people, describes the event as a premeditated act of protest driven by desperation.

The man, who worked for 40 years in the United States, states that he came into conflict with the Greek social security system over missing insurance contributions and a prolonged dispute regarding his pension rights, which he claims were never granted.

His legal defense argues that there was no intent to kill and refers to a long-standing judicial and administrative dispute.

The defendant alleges that EFKA “lost” his insurance stamps and treated him disrespectfully, including by calling him a “Janissary,” while Greek authorities allegedly failed for 21 years to process his pension claim. The incident is presented by the defense as an act of protest by an individual who claims he was wronged by state institutions and who chose imprisonment over remaining in a nursing home.

Statement by lawyer Vassilis Noulezas

“I have undertaken the defense of the 89-year-old man who, on Tuesday, used a shotgun to injure five people at EFKA in Kerameikos and at the Athens Court of First Instance on Loukareos Street, in what he describes as an act of protest and despair over his treatment by EFKA and the justice system, and over the failure to grant him the pension he says he was entitled to.

During our two-hour conversation at GADA, he told me that he had no homicidal intent nor any intention to injure innocent people, but only wanted to shake and frighten the system that treats citizens so unjustly.

He told me characteristically: ‘I lived and worked as a machinist for 40 whole years in Chicago, USA, and that country awarded me a pension of $2,614 which I receive every month. I also worked another eight years in Germany and receive a pension of €150, while in Greece, with 472 IKA stamps, they forged my signature in my health and insurance booklet and replied to the corresponding German institution, AOK, that I allegedly only have 37 stamps. And that I am not entitled to pensions.’

‘This gross injustice angered me and disappointed me. I also remember the characteristic phrase of an EFKA employee who told me: “You, the Janissary from America, came to Greece to get a pension?” This phrase was deeply insulting to me as a person who struggled for more than four years without result, having appointed three different lawyers.’

I handed over my health and insurance booklets to the competent authority in Chicago, USA, which forwarded them to EFKA, and they replied that they were lost. For 21 whole years they wronged me, they treated me literally like a dog that had gone mad and wanted to bite them.

It was an act of desperate protest. I cannot harm or kill any person, nor did I even want to injure anyone. I fired at the floor and left the shotgun, as well as a note I had previously given to four newspapers in order to publicize my problem so it would not happen to others.

“I have no dream left for my life”

I prefer to go to prison rather than to a nursing home and die after a few weeks. I will tell stories from Chicago there. I am completely mentally and psychologically healthy. When in 2019 I had bought a shotgun and wrote to the Athens Prosecutor’s Office that I would shoot as a form of protest, they locked me in Dafni psychiatric hospital for a month, which enraged me but gave me more strength to react.

I am now 90 years old, I have difficulty walking, I support and care for myself, and I have no other dream for my life. I consider justice weak and incapable of defending the interests of the ordinary citizen.

I had planned to travel. I had already purchased a ticket to Patras and paid €250 for a taxi in order to travel to Strasbourg. I went there and submitted my file and completed the relevant form so that my case against the Greek state could be heard, but I was subsequently removed. I had also intended to go there to protest.

I did not want to cause harm to anyone, nor did I aim the weapon. I simply wanted to scare them, to shake them, because for so many years they mocked me, ridiculed me, and belittled me as a person.

At EFKA and at the Athens Court of First Instance, I had previously visited and checked the premises, including entrances and exits. I observed that at EFKA this morning around 10 a.m., when I went up to the fourth floor, the security guard was speaking with two or three women and I was not checked by anyone.

I purchased the shotgun in the summer and modified it into a short-barrel weapon. I also had a revolver with me. I state that if a police officer had intervened, I would have dropped the weapon and surrendered, as I consider police officers to be honest, hardworking, and dedicated. I have full respect for the police”

Strike at EFKA

Employees in social policy institutions are entering a phase of dynamic mobilizations, with the Panhellenic Federation (POPOKP) declaring a 24-hour nationwide strike for today, Wednesday 29 April 2026.

The armed attack on the EFKA Local Directorate in Kerameikos, which resulted in the injury of a contract employee, became the trigger for a mass “indictment” against understaffing of services and “social automatism” that turns public servants into targets.

Work stoppage by judicial employees

The country’s judicial services are in a state of emergency, with the Federation of Judicial Employees of Greece (ODYE) declaring a nationwide two-hour work stoppage (09:00–11:00 a.m.).

Workers denounce “non-existent safety conditions” following two consecutive attacks within just three days, which demonstrated that courthouses remain unprotected against any kind of malicious act.