Greek appeal court upholds life sentence for US biologist’s killer
A mixed-jury appeals court in Crete on Thursday upheld the guilty verdict and life sentence of a 33-year-old man accused of murdering 60-year-old American biologist Suzanne Eaton in Maleme in 2019.
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.
According to information cited by local media,the defendant’s lawyer asked the court to consider mitigating factors and reduce the sentence but the jury rejected it. The verdict was unanimous.
Eaton’s son and sister attended the proceedings in person, state broadcaster ERT reported on Tuesday.
Eaton, 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.
