Prosecutor wants verdicts in gay activist murder upheld

The prosecutor at Athens’ Appeals Court proposed on Thursday the upholding of the guilty verdicts for the two men convicted of fatally beating Zak Kostopoulos, a gay rights activist, during an altercation in a jewelry shop in downtown Athens on September 21, 2018.

Stelios Kostarelos recommended that both the owner of the store where Kostopoulos was attacked and a real estate agent who participated in his brutal beating should be found guilty of causing fatal bodily harm. 

In 2022, a first instance court had sentenced both men to 10 years in prison, after finding them guilty of causing fatal bodily harm to the 33-year-old. However, the 80-year-old jewelry store owner was not sent to prison due to his age and served his sentence under house arrest. The prosecutor said the two men knew the repeated blows to the head of the victim could be fatal, adding that the incident looked like “a lynching.”