Supreme Court official instructs prosecutors to ‘supervise’ murder investigation

A Supreme Court prosecutor on Thursday sent instructions on Thursday to the office of the First Instance Prosecutor and the Athens Prosecutor, commanding them to “manage” and “supervise” the police in its investigation of the brutal murder of a young mother on the outskirts of the capital earlier this week.

“Withing the framework of your operational capacities, you must contribute, for the most part by managing and, accordingly, by supervising the preliminary investigation, in harmonious, of course, cooperation with the competent police authorities, exhausting all legal avenues to solve the crime, and locate and condemn the culprits,” Vassilis Pliotas said in a letter addressed to Sotiria Papageorgakopoulou and Yiannis Moraitakis, respectively.

“Greek society is stunned by the unprecedented brutality, the cold-blooded murder committed, with no moral inhibition, in Glyka Nera,” he said of the killing of the 20-year-old British-born student by a gang of burglars in the early hours of Tuesday. 

Police believe three armed culprits broke into her home, tied her up and tortured her to reveal the location of cash and jewelry. They also tied up her 32-year-old pilot husband, identified as Babis Anagnostopoulos, and killed the family dog. The couple’s 11-month-old child was unharmed.

In another unusual move, the government on Tuesday announced a 300,000-euro reward for information on the identities and whereabout of the culprits.