New details have emerged about the past of the 43-year-old man involved in the investigation into the death of a nine-month-old baby whose frozen body was found inside a suitcase in an apartment in Kypseli, Athens.
According to information reported by Ta Nea, the man had been accused in April 2020 of trafficking a German woman. He was released from Korydallos Prison, a major detention facility in Athens, on October 26, 2020.
Costas Yannopoulos, President of BoD of the Greek child protection organization “The Smile of the Child’, told Ta Nea that the current case appears to correspond to reports published in 2020 about a 37-year-old man accused of prostituting a German woman.
“These concerned a 37-year-old man who prostituted a German woman in an apartment on Acharnon Street, after meeting her through social media and presenting himself as romantically interested in her. The names and ages match the case now under investigation,” Yannopoulos said.
According to the 2020 charges, after the German woman arrived in Greece, the man took her passport, confined her and forced her into prostitution. He had reportedly posted an advertisement online offering her services.
When police entered the apartment, they also found a second woman who was described as the man’s partner.
The allegations from 2020 are now being examined in connection with the ongoing investigation in Kypseli.
Previous home linked to the investigation
Before moving to the Kypseli apartment where the baby’s body was discovered, the family had been living in a fourth-floor apartment on Fyli Street that was also rented through Airbnb.
Residents described frequent activity around the apartment, saying unfamiliar people would ring the building’s doorbells before going up to the fourth floor.
Neighbors also recalled frequent shouting and arguments coming from the apartment. Some said they noticed behavior that led them to believe drugs were being used there.
The family left the apartment about a month and a half ago. According to information reported by Ta Nea, the move followed a fire that broke out in the apartment for reasons that remain unknown. The family subsequently moved to Kypseli.
The rent for the Fyli Street apartment was reportedly paid normally throughout the period the family lived there.
Earlier reports about the children
Authorities are also examining the circumstances in which the family’s three minor children were living.
Yannopoulos said that reports concerning the family’s environment had been made to The Smile of the Child in both 2020 and 2024.
“We tried to identify the ages and names of the parents and children and realized that it was the same family,” he said.
He said the organization had received reports about the environment in which the children were being raised, as well as other matters that could not be disclosed publicly.
According to Yannopoulos, the children had been placed in a hospital for their protection, but the man later went to the hospital and took them away.
“In such cases, the police are informed and efforts are made to locate them. But this particular incident did not reach us,” he said.
The new information is being examined alongside the investigation into the nine-month-old baby’s death, including the circumstances surrounding the child’s injuries, the storage and movement of the body, and the people who may have known about the death.
