The guilt of the two defendants for the gang rape and murder of Eleni Topaloudi was unanimously decided by the Mixed Jury Court of Appeal. The court, adopting the prosecution's proposal, convicted the two young defendants for the felonies of intentional homicide and gang rape.
The father of Eleni Topaloudi on hearing the court decision burst into tears while her mother chose to remain outside the courtroom.
At the side of the parents of the unfortunate student, Magda Fyssa, Erato's mother, Syriza MP N. Voutsis and of Mera 25, Kriton Arsenis.
[/P]The judges in their decision rejected the defendants' independent claims while the baton of the hearing was passed to the defense attorneys who are asking for mitigating circumstances for their clients. Besides , the recognition or not of mitigating circumstances will determine the decision of the Court of Appeal. This is because in case the court says "yes" to mitigating circumstances, the life sentences will be "broken".
The prosecutor, however, has requested that the defendants be declared guilty , without mitigating circumstances, as in the first instance.
The prosecutor, in a catapulting sentence, expressed the certainty that the defendants acted together, thus responding to their attempt to blame each other.
"The homicide was committed by both of them in order to silence the girl. If someone didn't want to, they would have called for help... All their subsequent actions prove that everything was done together," the prosecutor said in her motion in which she spoke about the torturous death of Eleni, stressing: "If Helen had consented to this whole scene she would still be alive, everything would have ended peacefully and nicely. When they saw that she reacted, they used violence and forced her to have intercourse. In complete sobriety they decided to exterminate her. They beat her, tortured her, threw her alive into the sea to make her disappear. Their attitude testifies to planning, joint execution and deceit."
It is recalled that the two defendants have been sentenced for life for the murder of Eleni Topaloudi and an additional 15 years for the gang rape.
Source: newsbeast.gr
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