With tears in their eyes and with the memories of the horrors they experienced accompanying them, as they say, forever, Citizens who experienced the deadly fire in Mati and lost their own people, continue to testify from this morning, in the courtroom of the Athens Trial Court where the trial for the case is being held. In fact, today the hearing began with a request by a defence lawyer for self-exclusion and abstention by the president of the court because yesterday, she allowed relatives of the victims to place photographs of the people they lost in the courtroom. This request was rejected by the court after a short conference.
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Then, the witness Magdalene Chekou, who lost her father a few days after the outbreak of the deadly fire because of the burns he had suffered, took the witness stand. With tears in her eyes, the witness told the court that her father delayed leaving their house in Mati because he was trying to help a disabled neighbour and his wife get into a car and leave.
"My house is 200 metres from Marathonos Avenue. At 17.15 I see smoke in the back of the mountain. I picked up my parents, the sky was blackening. No channel was giving any clue. At 17.30 there was a red light which meant there was a fire. On some channel we saw about a fire in Callisthenburg. The wind was very strong It looked like the fire was going to New Makri. It never went past Marathonos, we said. It kept getting stronger," the witness said, breaking into sobs, and continued: "A pine cone crossed Marathon and my father shouts 'we're leaving now! We collected papers. The power was out. At some point the flames came closer. "You and mom in front and me behind you in the car" he told us. We had made an appointment to all meet in Rafina."
But at that appointment, the witness said, her father never came. The young woman described: "I left with my car and my mother. The road was on fire. A man jumped on the hood of the car. I put him in. There was a fire in front of us. He says to me: ["WE'RE GOING TO BURN." I TOLD HIM WITH THE CAR? WE'RE ON FIRE. HE JUMPED AND DROVE OFF IN THE DIRECTION OF THE SEA. I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM. I TURNED AROUND, WENT INTO THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF MARATHON AND STARTED CALLING MY FATHER. HE DIDN'T PICK UP. PEOPLE WERE SCREAMING: "The fire will bury you, run, don't stay here!" All the way I haven't seen anyone in charge. No siren, no bell, nothing! Only people were shouting. At the intersection with Rafina, I called my father again. He didn't pick up. I meet up with my sister and we say we should go back to Rafina harbor because dad might have crossed the road on fire. We arrived at the port asking about our father. No one has seen him."
Then, she said, she received a phone call from a relative in Messolonghi, who told her that a rescuer had picked up her father's phone. "Around 22:00 we went to "Evangelism". We see him going to intensive care. He had 85% external burns and 35% internal, it was one of the worst cases. They intubated him. They told us to wait. My father left on July 27. Since that afternoon when we left the house, I have never been able to talk to him again," the witness said to continue: "My father tried to help a family who had a disabled person. They were trapped in the car, which was on fire. My father was dragged to the ground. This happened at 7.30pm and by 9pm they were lying down. I know this because the neighbour managed to survive and was interviewed and I found out about it. Her disabled husband was charred along with the family of four in whose car he was in. Later she also died of complications."
Next, Mrs. Evanthia Sideri, who lost her husband and her mother, took the witness stand. "Around 5:45 I saw smoke. I was running at the computer off. The power was out. My daughter smells smoke and because she had an earlier experience she has a panic attack. "We are going to burn, we are going to die!" I froze," the witness in question said, beginning her testimony to continue: "We went outside. Cars everywhere and some people were frozen. My daughter Persephone was running in front, behind me and my mother and further behind my husband. At some point we lost him. We entered the path. My mom at the time says to me "I'm not going to make it, leave me". I tell her let's go. We get to the steps and all of a sudden my daughter yells "mommy you're burning up!". I throw clothes and fall into the sea, I see seconds before my daughter grabs my mom and pulls her into the sea. I lost them. A black veil fell everywhere. I found a reef and sat down. I screamed for hours. And being saved is like being dead. ...burnt babies, burnt mothers. Burning everything. It was an inconceivable thing. We were completely alone. After hours a big boat came along. Making a mess. "Burn them first!" shouting. My husband came in black as a sheet and passed out. I called my daughter, she said she couldn't find Grandma. They started looking for her in the sea. I saw everything. Bodies in a state of Pompeii. We lost my mother and my husband a few months later collapsed from it and died in hospital. I ask for justice for the memory of my mother, my husband, Chryssa Spilioti
who was my friend and for all those who were unjustly lost."
Request
[/P]At the beginning of the hearing, defense attorney Thrasybulos Kontaxis took the floor and spoke of procedural aberration because the court allowed yesterday the placement of photographs of victims of the tragedy in the courtroom. Counsel inter alia stated: "Your impartiality towards the defendants is compromised. It creates an absolute nullity of the proceedings. The court was not calm and dispassionate. I will inform the President of the Supreme Court and the competent institutions. I ask you to declare yourself excused. You have registered a mortgage for a malpractice suit. We are not in the people's courts of Tehran. Let the court declare abstention and self-exclusion."
President: I don't understand why this is happening. This happened yesterday. Today nothing happened.
Kontaxis: What about it? I don't understand why this happened yesterday.
President: Was there a sense of bias in the court?
Kontaxis: The definition of that sense.
In the end, the court denied the motion to recuse itself after a brief conference with the president reporting: "There is no question of abstention or recusal for any member of the panel. Each of us can perform our duties impartially."
Source: Proto Thema
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