Three men found guilty in Thessaloniki mayor’s mob attack
A misdemeanors court in Thessaloniki on Wednesday found three people guilty over a mob attack against city mayor Yiannis Boutaris last weekend, which resulted in his brief hospitalization.
Two of the accused, aged 20, were handed a 14-month and 21-month suspended prison sentence respectively, while the 36-year-old ethnic Greek from Georgia received a 14-month jail sentence, which he was allowed to buy out for five euros per day, as he did not meet the conditions for a suspended sentence.
Reading out the sentences, the presiding judge accepted the incident was "an organized attack against the mayor," a position shared by the prosecutor.
Earlier, the three suspects said they had regretted their actions and apologized, claiming they had been carried away by the crowd. The man from Georgia even claimed he did not know who he was beating.
The assault on Boutaris took place in front of the northern port’s emblematic White Tower during a commemoration of the World War I genocide of the Pontic Greeks last Saturday.
The 75-year-old mayor was set upon by about a dozen people demanding that he leave the event. He was then pushed to the ground and kicked several times in the head, back and legs.
