Appeal trial over US biologist Suzanne Eaton’s murder to begin Thursday
The appeal against a first-instance court’s verdict over the murder of American biologist Suzanne Eaton on the island of Crete in 2019 is set to begin at a court in Hania on Thursday.
A local man, Ioannis Paraskakis, was sentenced to life in prison in 2020 over the killing, with an additional 13 years for rape and four months for the possession of firearms.
The trial that begins on Thursday will revisit all the key evidence and testimony regarding the brutal murder of the 60-year-old scientist.
Eaton’s son and sister will attend the proceedings in person, state broadcaster ERT reported on Tuesday.
Suzanne Eaton, 60, a molecular biologist at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany, was found dead in a disused military bunker in July 2019, several days after going missing while out for a run.
Paraskakis initially confessed to the murder but retracted his statement later, saying that it had been made under duress and that his presence in the area had been purely accidental.
Eaton had been in Crete for a scientific conference.
