Six Nigrita prison guards face trial for inmate’s death

A Thessaloniki court will start hearing the trial of six correctional officers next Monday in connection with the death of Albanian inmate Ilie Kareli in Nigrita Prison, northern Greece, in March last year.

The suspects are alleged to have beaten and tortured Kareli to death. Their trial is being anticipated with great interest in Albania and, according to sources, members of human rights organizations are to attend. According to the same sources, Kareli’s family will be absent from the trial, citing financial constraints.

Kareli was transferred to Nigrita Prison in March 2014 after killing a guard with a piece of glass at Malandrino Prison in central Greece, where he had been serving a 12-year term for robbery. Closed-circuit television footage showed guards escorting him into a waiting room and, hours later, to a cell where he died.

An autopsy showed he had died from massive injuries provoked by the beating.