The trial for the Zac Kostopoulos case begins

Before the Mixed Court of Justice, is expected to begin today, the trial of the six defendants, two businessmen and four police officers, for what happened at noon on September 21, 2018, in Gladstonos Street in the center of Athens, where the 33 year old man died on the pavement, beaten Zack Kostopoulos.

Both the two civilians , the jeweller and a broker, and the four police officers who had rushed to the scene, are charged with causing grievous bodily harm, while the trial was set for today after being postponed a year ago due to the coronavirus measures. .

The death of the 33-year-old activist, which comes to the fore three years later, had shocked much of society because of the cruelty of the beatings the activist received from the accused, scenes that were recorded and broadcast by the media, a death in public view, as the Prosecution has reported. The footage, which is part of the case file expected to be presented in court, is particularly brutal as it records the 33-year-old being severely beaten by the first two defendants and eventually passing out while police officers tried to handcuff him.

According to the judgment of the Judicial Council for the arraignment of the six defendants, the 33-year-old on September 21, 2018 at 2:30 pm “entered for unknown reasons” the jewelry store of the 76-year-old jeweler on Gladstonos Street whose door was unsecured by the owner due to his brief absence. Kostopoulos, according to the case file, was in a state of over-excitement and when he realized that he could not exit because the door was “unsecured”, he started hitting first the glass door with a fire extinguisher and then the lower level of the shattered window. When the victim attempted to crawl to get out, he was repeatedly and severely beaten in the head and body by the jeweler and the 58-year-old broker. Then, according to the indictment, the police officers, while he was already bleeding and “unable to concentrate his forces and was having difficulty breathing... acted with excessive zeal” and with intense violence they immobilized him.

The serious physical injuries caused by the repeated blows received by the 33-year-old, “contributed to the induction of organic stress, which in turn caused the ischemic-type myocardial lesions that were the final cause of death”, according to the forensic reports included in the case file.

In the verdict, it is stated that the two shopkeepers had the aim “not to let the victim escape”, but “in view of their age and the basic social experience they had, they were able to foresee that their attack on Kostopoulos with blows to the head, while they were probably passing through a broken pane of glass, could result in the death of the victim, but through lack of due care, which they ought and could have exercised, they acted recklessly and attacked the victim without foreseeing the result”.

For the four uniformed officers, the judges of the Council state that, “in view of the training they had received and the experience they had gained in the performance of their duties, they were able to foresee that the blows they inflicted on Kostopoulos in order to immobilize and restrain him, given that he was in a state of over-excitement, but with an obvious inability to concentrate his forces, suffering from multiple injuries and having difficulty breathing, would have aggravated the already existing risk to his life, and yet, through lack of the due care which they ought and could have taken, acted with excessive zeal (...) without foreseeing the result. .“.

The judicial council had rejected the pleas of the activist's family, which asked for the charge to be upgraded to manslaughter with possible malice aforethought.