Indares family acquitted of charges of violence against officers

A court in Athens acquitted a director and his two sons of violence against police officers and other misdemeanours during a raid to evacuate a squat in the central district of Koukaki in December 2019.

Director Dimitris Indares had been charged with violence against employees, insult and unlawful violence, while his two sons (a university student and a lawyer in training) faced charges of disobedience, obstructing operation of public office, dangerous bodily harm and illegal possession of a weapon.

A three-member Misdemeanor Appeal Court agreed with the prosecutor who recommended their release, arguing that there was no proof linking the Indares family to the squat in the adjacent building. On the contrary, the director had previously contacted the administration of the Evangelismos hospital, to which the building belongs, to inform it that some individuals had entered the building and were staying inside.

The prosecutor also found contradictions in the statements of the officers in terms of what they originally claimed during the preliminary investigation and what they said in court. She also cited video footage shown in court that “leaves no doubt that it was others who threw objects at the police and not the defendants, who were in their home.”

“The three defendants absolutely did not commit these acts. They became victims of blind, brutal and arbitrary police brutality and were used by police forces to cover up the colossal failure of the operation. They became the scapegoats,” she told the court.

Indares and his sons were allegedly beaten by police officers of Greek Police’s counterterrorism unit, EKAM, who forced their way into their home, allegedly without a warrant, while trying to evacuate an adjacent squat on Koukaki’s Matrozou Street.

The Hellenic Police (ELAS) had claimed that the two young men were part of the group running the squat and had attacked officers carrying out the evacuation.

Indares was taken to hospital and released wearing a cervical collar. Photographs that appeared on social media showed that he and his two sons were handcuffed and forced to sit on the terraced roof of their own house, despite their protestations that they had nothing to do with the squat next door.