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[Cyprus Times] "Girlfriend, you don't have cancer", said the pseudo-doctor to a breast cancer patient. How he took €50,000 from an 8-year-old's family

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"What you have is not cancer, it's milk gland clots because you haven't breastfed," Dr Kontos told her He was telling us "in six months she'll be climbing the stairs," testified the father of a minor boy who was diagnosed at age 8 with muscular dystrophy

Incredible facts about the actions of the "pseudo-doctor" are also described today in his trial at the Mixed Jury Court of Athens, victims of the accused testifying in the audience. A woman, who was suffering from breast cancer, testified that the "false doctor" gave her an ultrasound in a central clinic in Athens and told her: "Sound the alarm, girlfriend. What you have is not cancer is milk gland clots because you haven't breastfed. You have them in the other gland as well. I'm telling you so they don't put you down and operate on you!"

According to the witness, the defendant had asked her for a total of 12,000 euros but she didn't give it to him because she didn't have it. "If I had it, I would have given him twice as much, such was his persuasion that you could not think that this man was a fraud, you could not doubt him perhaps because he was telling you what you wanted to hear," said the witness to add that when a cancer patient hears "end of alarm" it is a huge joy, as "cancer is synonymous with despair."

Beginning her testimony in court, the witness said: "I had surgery in 2015 with breast cancer I had radiotherapy and took medication. After three years it came back. Doctors told me to have a mastectomy. Then I turned to different doctors and came across Kondo. I met him in February 2019. He asked me for my medical history and asked me if I had breastfed. I told him "no" and he replied "that's good". Then, as the witness said, the defendant gave her an ultrasound at a central clinic in Athens and that was when he told her: "Sound the alarm, girlfriend". However, as she pointed out, she had already arranged to have a mastectomy, as her doctors had recommended, and the accused, according to her, did not object. "I told him I was going to have surgery and he told me to have it. He told me I was right to do it and not to do chemotherapy because in every chemotherapy regimen each doctor puts 25,000 euros in his pants."

"I had the indications but I didn't see them..."

After the mastectomy surgery, the doctors recommended that the patient find an oncologist and she, she testified, had found the "best" one. Mr. Kondo! "He made me have specialized urine and blood tests at a certain diagnostic center and told me when I made the appointment to say I was from him. I would mail them to him. He never got back to me. I was informed by what the microbiologist was saying," the witness said.

Chairman: Didn't that trouble you?

Witness: No. The evidence was there but I did not see it. He had tremendous conviction he talked to you and you adored him, maybe because he told you what you wanted to hear....

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According to the witness' testimony, the 48-year-old "fake doctor" asked her for money for the alleged treatments he would administer. "In December 2019 he brought me some preparations, he told me it was cannabis, I don't remember anything like that. He told me about a maintenance treatment he was going to give me, even though I was feeling fine. The cost of it was 5,600 euros. He had told me about artemisinin injections that cost 16,000 euros. He had done one on my shoulder."

According to the witness, the accused was "a fraudster with a wide range of activities" as, among other things, he had told a friend that he could make myopia disappear with injections and had asked her to open an account in Switzerland. "I had the clues but I didn't evaluate her. In retrospect I put the pieces of the puzzle together when the bubble burst," the witness said, further noting that in addition to cannabis oils the accused had recommended a diet of beetroot, garlic and various other manjuns to her. In fact, she testified she had seen the 48-year-old at the clinic where she was visiting him to have her "tested" in the company of a team of doctors. "He was examining me in a room inside the clinic, the door did not have his name on it. There was never a nurse, there was never anyone. One time my husband asked him "doctor what do we owe you?" and he replied, "Absolutely nothing, we don't take money from Greek patients."

"He will climb the stairs..."

The father of a minor boy, who was diagnosed at the age of 8 with muscular dystrophy, testified at the trial today. "A friend of my wife's had met Kontostathi and introduced him to us. My wife spoke to him on the phone and invited him to come to the house. In 2015. He introduced himself as a Doctor. I don't remember what specialty he told us he had," this witness said of the accused and went on to say the following: "He would come and see the child. The first time he asked for 8,000 euros. Then when he brought herbs, he took more money in succession. In total he took more than 50,000 euros. He gave us teas, juices, etc. and insisted that we stop cortisone therapy. Fortunately, my wife spoke to someone else she knew who had stopped her child's treatment and told her he had gotten worse. So we did not cut her off treatment. She was telling us "in six months she will be climbing the stairs" and that the cortisone was preventing the treatment from working. We went to a hospital where the child had tests. Suddenly the phones stopped ringing. The defendant's wife was telling us that he was "out." I was sure from the first moment that there was no chance of seeing any improvement. We just gave the kid a hard time, every hour of herb, every morning at six ointments. I don't know what was in the herbs, but the child had no improvement."

At the start of the trial today, another victim's relative testified at the hearing, who said that her cancer-stricken son-in-law was persuaded by the defendant to stop the chemotherapy treatments and drink herbs and oils that he administered to him about 14 to 15 times a day.

As the witness testified, her son-in-law contracted pancreatic cancer in 2012 and within about a year he expired. According to the witness, the unfortunate man met the "false doctor" from his spiritual director on Mount Athos.

Among other things in her testimony, the victim's relative said: "We knew him as a herbalist. My sister and brother-in-law met him and he told them that he is an Air Force pilot who is engaged in botany. He gave him a lot of herbs and several little bottles, which I don't know what was in them. He drank from them 13 or 14 a day. He convinced him not to do chemo even though he had started. But he didn't do the last ones because the stuff he was drinking had made him very depressed. He had had five or six chemo treatments. But he stopped them because of his acquaintance with the herbalist. Kontostathis and another man came to the house, who wanted to do surgery to take the cancer out of him. We wouldn't let him have it. He continued to treat Kontostathis. He got the money by saying he would help someone with what he had children but he had no money to live on, to pay his electricity. As far as I know they gave over 100,000 euros. My brother-in-law continued the treatment of Kontostathi and ended up on July 7, 2013 in the hospital "Laiko". Kontostathis also came to the hospital to talk to the doctor and there he was injected into the IV."

President: What did the doctors tell you? That he could make it?

Witness: Surely he would have gotten an extension of at least two years. WOMAN: Why not? For his children it was important. After his death, the defendant never picked up the phone. On the day of his death, he gave him injections.

The trial continues.

Source: protothema.gr


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