What if the Georgian had confessed?;

The unspoken, creeping racism of Greek society, combined with the tactics of the police, are now leading to situations similar to the infamous «wrongful convictions» of blacks in the US. The pattern is the same: a brutal crime causes a storm of reactions and political pressure for the identification and immediate arrest of the culprits.

The police are pressured by the political authorities and blame the «usual suspects» for crime: the blacks. In the famous case of the «Chicago Four», four young African-Americans, with no criminal record, are arrested and, after pressure, threats and all kinds of violence, are forced to confess to a horrible crime they had not committed, nor had anything to do with.

For the show «Reporting Without Borders», my team and I had made a series of documentaries on the Chicago case and other typical cases. One of these documentaries features the case of Rubin.“Hurricane” Carter, of a black boxing champion who turned out to be innocent after spending 20 years in prison. His tragic story was made into a movie in 1999 (“Hurricane” with Denzel Washington as Carter) and a song by Bob Dylan of the same title.

Carter got off cheap with 20 years. Dozens if not hundreds of other innocent people, the vast majority of them Black, were put in the electric chair. In Greece, the death penalty has been abolished, although some, including a New Democracy politician, have raised the issue of its reinstatement, on the occasion of the murder of the unfortunate Caroline in Sweet Water. The racist, xenophobic cloud that was raised on the occasion of this crime and the police leaks about the suspects, which the police and most of the media were sure were immigrants, is reminiscent of similar incidents in the USA.

It was the Greek police, or at least some parts of it, that leaked to pro-government media that the Georgian arrested at the border was probably one of the killers in Sweet Water. Even though there was no substantial evidence linking him to the murder. They wanted him guilty quickly and tried for 4 days, under torture, to get him to confess to a murder he had not committed. While the real culprit was right in front of them and from the first days of his testimony and behavior, it seemed that something was very wrong.

Proverbial incompetence, racist-social blinkers or maybe both at the same time? What seems like the easiest answer is what would have happened if the Georgian had confessed, as is often the case with people who are tortured, simply to end the torment, alone and helpless in the face of an unrelenting violent power.

Because of course, as always happens in torture, someone would have played the good guy and someone would have played the bad guy, someone would have promised him that if he confessed he would go easy, except that after days they would give him a plate of food and a cigarette. Oh, and a doctor, which, as the police announced, he asked for himself and they brought him one, as the compassionate Greek police do with all prisoners who ask for it. ‘Or was the doctor one of those brought in during the torture under the junta, to see if the prisoner could take any more?;

So in this case of false confession, social stereotypes would have been confirmed, immigrants would have been even more targeted and Mandrou would not have been talking about an «alleged perpetrator»: the televised court would have already imposed the maximum sentence.

As for this tender soul, Bambi Anagnostopoulos, because as it was pointed out to Skye, he didn't tear his wife to pieces to throw her in the trash, so tender that he just murdered her in front of their child and hung their dog, he «tried to bring her back» as the forensic expert and a little (very little) journalist Economou ruled, he would have spared her.

If the Georgian had confessed, Mr Chrysochoidis and the police leadership would have received the Prime Minister's congratulations and the praise of the media for the swift solving of the crime, a murderer would have walked free among us with his poor child in his arms, the atmosphere in the country would have been poisoned. Will anyone pay for this? ‘Or will we, as a society, continue to move forward in an undeclared, incremental, undemocratic diversion?;