Μake us preferred on Google A 20-year-old man from Guinea suspected of murdering a 24-year-old woman from Burkina Faso in Athens has reportedly fled to France after first traveling to Italy, as Greek police seek his arrest and extradition.
The woman’s body was discovered inside a suitcase on Nov. 8 in the Agios Panteleimonas neighborhood of central Athens. Investigators believe she was killed at an apartment in Kolonos before her body was transported and abandoned on a sidewalk.
The suspect and the woman had met in 2024 at a migrant accommodation facility on the island of Leros and reportedly maintained a relationship alongside her relationship with a Cameroonian man.
Investigators reconstruct the woman’s final movements
The 24-year-old returned to Athens on Oct. 28 after working the tourist season at a hotel on the island of Folegandros.
The following morning, she met her Cameroonian partner in Kypseli, where she had been staying. She reportedly told him she planned to meet a female friend for coffee in central Athens later that day.
Police believe she instead went to the Kolonos apartment where the 20-year-old suspect lived and where the two reportedly met frequently.
According to the investigators’ working theory, an argument broke out and the suspect killed her by suffocation, possibly using a pillow or another object.
The suspect allegedly placed her body inside a suitcase and carried it to Alkmenous Street in Agios Panteleimonas, leaving it on the sidewalk beside a garbage container. Investigators believe he may have expected a garbage collection truck to pick up the suitcase along with the trash. It was not collected.
Roommate’s testimony points to suspect
Police pieced together footage from security cameras to reconstruct the suspect’s movements from the location where the suitcase was abandoned to the apartment in Kolonos.
Investigators believe he returned to the apartment, cleaned the scene, collected some of his personal belongings and disappeared.
A key development came from the testimony of his roommate, whom police found at the apartment. The roommate told investigators that the 20-year-old returned after abandoning the suitcase and confessed to killing the woman before leaving again.
The Cameroonian partner had reported the woman’s disappearance to police on Oct. 29. Authorities have said no information implicating him in the killing has emerged in the investigation.
French authorities issue arrest warrant
French authorities have reportedly issued an arrest warrant for the 20-year-old, who is being sought so he can be detained and handed over to Greek authorities.
Greek homicide investigators believe the case is now close to being solved, as they work to secure the suspect’s arrest and establish the full circumstances of the killing.
