A shocking patricide this week in southern coastal Athens turned even more scandalous when authorities announced that the alleged 46-year-old suspect has previously murdered his mother and then served only four years in prison before a conditional early release in 2018.
The suspect now stands accused of fatally stabbing his 80-year-old father outside the latter’s apartment building on Sunday morning in the upscale Glyfada district as the victim exited to go to church.
Police who arrived at the scene after neighbors frantically called an emergency dispatcher found the victim’s body stuffed in the trunk of his son’s car.
In gruesome testimony, witnesses said the elderly man was heard pleading, “my child, I’m now dead, don’t kill me anymore…” shortly before he died.
Police recovered what they said is the murder weapon, while stating that when apprehended the alleged perpetrator said that if released he’d kill his two siblings.
A previous conviction for matricide
The suspect had previously been convicted of murdering his mother in 2014 in her home, and in the same manner allegedly used on Sunday, by stabbing her to death.
He was remanded to the psychiatric ward of Korydallos prison in 2014, yet in 2018 he was conditionally released and then involuntarily committed to a public psychiatric clinic in western Athens for a brief period.
The case has again generated significant media and social media attention in Greece over the issue of recidivism, individuals deemed as criminally insane “falling through the cracks” of the judicial and correctional systems, and, on a political level, what political opponents continue to refer to as disastrous legislation by the previous SYRIZA-ANEL government (2015-2019) that allowed the release of hundreds of convicted felons from lockup, ostensibly to relieve prison overcrowding. The same sharp criticism included the leftist government’s controversial penal code revision in 2019 – coming in its waning days before losing a general election in a landslide in July 2019 – which downgraded sentences for various offenses.
Police spox
“In 2014, he (suspect) was duly sent to prison. In 2018, he was released under the notorious law, which, unfortunately, has also led to the release of other felon inmates. He served only four years instead of eight, as his sentence was 16 years. In other words, he should have been released in 2030. However, he only served four years because when an inmate is treated in a prison’s psychiatric ward, each day is considered as having served two (off the sentence). Thus, according to the law, he was considered to have served eight years. He was released; however, on the order of the (relevant) prosecutor, he was immediately then taken to the Dromokaiteio (psychiatric hospital),” a Greek Police (EL.AS) spokeswoman said on Monday morning.
The “notorious law” in this case refers to legislation in 2016 passed in Parliament by a majority of deputies backing the then SYRIZA-ANEL coalition government, the so-called “Paraskevopoulos law”. The latter refers to the former minister of justice, transparency and human rights who brought the draft bill to Parliament, Nikos Paraskevopoulos.
Under provisions of that law – which was subsequently revised and made stricter by the succeeding center-right New Democracy (ND) government – the specific inmate was eligible for early release after serving four years, doubled to eight due to treatment in the psychiatric clinic, out of the total 16-year sentence for homicide.
Govt spokesman
When asked about the incident during a regular press briefing on Monday, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis pointed to the murder in Glyfada as again showing that the “Paraskevopoulos law” has had disastrous results.
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis.
“Serious questions arise as to how the 46-year-old was released from the correctional facility and by whom. The Paraskevopoulos law did not come out of nowhere; some people proposed it and some people voted for it. This law, in combination with the 2019 penal code revisions, had disastrous results in terms of mass releases from prison,” he said.
