Today is an important day for the trial of Dimitris Lignadis as the first person who had photographed the well-known actor and director in an interview for abusive behavior testified at the Mixed Jury Court. The man, now 36, had said that in 2005 at the age of 19 he was sexually abused by Dimitris Lignadi at the director's home in the presence of a young man, where he had gone to rehearse a monologue.
"I remember the pain, the fear, how to go to my family, what to tell them what happened to me? Fifteen years I couldn't tell her... I felt humiliated, wronged. What if I was wrong? What did I ask for? I only wanted to read a monologue...", she told the court, bursting into tears. Beginning his testimony, the 36-year-old said he wanted to be an actor and through his aunt he got in touch with the director whom he first met on September 19-20, 2005.
"He called me and said 'put on some pants and come downstairs'. He was downstairs with a motorbike he looked me up and down and said 'fine, later this week you'll come by my house and I'll give you the monologue' and went on: "I went to his house. He let me in, he was very friendly. It was a very short meeting and he told me that the next meeting would be in the evening. He gave me the last monologue from "The Glass World" by Tennessee Williams. I went home, read the monologue, memorized it immediately."
Regarding the night in question where he claims he was raped, the witness said that D. Lignadis called him around 10:30 in the evening and invited him to go home in twenty minutes. "I went there, I rang the bell and another kid let me in. I felt embarrassed because I didn't know there would be another person there. He was in the bathroom. At some point the defendant came out wearing a towel. I was shocked, I imagined he would say "I'm going to get dressed" I didn't imagine he would stay with the towel on the couch. The defendant is almost the same age as my parents. In my eyes he was a teacher. There was nothing erotic, I didn't realize he was gay, I thought I was at a teacher's house to help me.
He came out with the towel, he was friendly he told me it was his birthday and I realized he had a different behavior, he was aggressive. He asked me questions I didn't understand. A barrage of questions in the context of the monologue about Tom, the protagonist. He was saying to me, "Do you understand what he was doing in the porn shops?" I didn't even know the word. "You haven't done oral sex?" he'd ask me, I'd only had relations with two girls. I couldn't imagine that such questions were needed for a monologue. I awkwardly went to answer and he said, "Do you have a problem with nudity? ...Then he asked me to prove that I was willing to be in the room to show him my buttocks. In the presence of the other kid. It was too awkward. "Is that so hard for you?" he asked me. I stood up, pulled down my pants, showed my buttocks, pulled them up and sat back down. Out of the corner of my eye I realized he was stroking his genitals. Then he asked me about my girlfriends, if I had done oral sex, there was an intimidation."
Chairman: What was there to be afraid of?
Witness: Because it was a well-orchestrated set-up. I understood that afterwards. With his barrage of questions. At 19 when you're not in a same-sex relationship you never tell your family. I was scared. How could there be such an extreme attitude in the look... I couldn't remember if the other child had locked the door. I was shocked, I was paralysed...
Chairman: Did you say "I want to leave, I don't feel comfortable"?
Witness: I was blushing, I was feeling fear, weakness, he was seeing all this.
While he was touching his genitals he told the child to masturbate. "That's what they do in porn shops," he told me. The 36-year-old then began to describe being forced by the defendant into oral sex. "There another procedure for oral sex started there. A conversation where I had to tell my experiences and whether I have taboos. He was telling me that 'if you are not open-minded, you will not be able to engage in the field,' he was telling me. I was 19 years old. He asked me if I could give oral sex to the boy next to me. I wasn't looking at them, I had my head down, out of the corner of my eye I could see that he was masturbating... There was a tension in his body and in his voice, it was like he was angry.
I just leaned into the boy and for seconds I did this, thinking this would all be over. It did. He got upset at my clumsiness. He asked me to do the same to him, he started telling me the same thing again. I thought how many trials for a monologue. For a second or two I leaned into him too. He stood up, put down his towel and walked naked inside. The boy was embarrassed too. At some point he called us inside. We went into a dark room, both of us inside.
The "stage direction" and the third person
"It was as if he was constantly directing us, telling us where to stand. He says "pull your pants down," I barely did. He pushed me onto the bed. Next to it was a metal rod. He pushed me onto the bed, took the metal rod and put it against my body. I started saying "stop, stop." I was on all fours on the bed, my pants were down a little bit. I realized that this is it, that I have to get out of there. He touched me and tried to penetrate the rod into my body. I was saying "stop the pain", he was shouting loudly "relax, calm down...It was the most horrible thing I have experienced, the greatest pain..." he said, crying.
He said he wanted to leave the apartment, but when he went to get his things from the living room he was again forced to make close contact with the young man who was in Lignadi's apartment. "I realized that the situation had gotten out of hand. He asked me to perform oral sex on the child. I didn't want to do anything, I looked the child in the eyes, he looked at me too, we lowered our gaze. I gave a minimal amount of oral sex."
Chairman: Didn't you tell us that you wanted to leave?"
Witness: It was a suffocating context, I didn't know if the metal rod would be used against me, I didn't know if I left if he would follow me, what he would do. I wanted the whole thing to fade away... The boy finished, and so did Lignadis. Then he said "go away, I have an early wake-up call" and read the monologue.
They left and then sat down on a bench. "I was in pain, I was shaking I was about to cry. The kid said let's go talk 'you don't have to do anything the part says' he told me." She never had contact with Dimitri Lignadi again. In 2007-2010, when he was working in a café in Gazi, Lignadis came there by chance as a customer. Since then he came every Saturday, but they did not talk.
Tension between witness and Kougias
During a break in the trial, a verbal confrontation occurred between the actor's defense attorney, Alexis Kougias, and people attending the hearing.
Then the witness during his testimony in court spoke out against Kouia : "The defendant's lawyer rapes us every day, tells us l@@res and shifters. Thousands of kids in middle school and high school who are homosexual hear this. Mr. Kougias said when the trial started that there would be a fair trial, and that's what we want a fair trial. My rapist's lawyer goes on TV and talks about l@@@s and shifters. In the country where Yakoumakis committed suicide by bullying". Due to the malaise felt by the witness, his testimony was interrupted and will resume on Friday, June 3.
Source: reader.gr
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