Mother of slain teenager calls for peaceful protests against killer’s release
The mother of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos who was shot dead in 2008 by special police guard Epaminondas Korkoneas has blasted the latter’s release from prison after serving just 13 years of his life sentence and called for protests against the ruling.
“This was the final blow. My child is in the ground and his killers are free. But the injustice is not just suffered by me, it is suffered by the whole of society. A society that wants to live peacefully and enjoy its children,” Tzina Tsalikian said in an open letter published on Tuesday.
“Let this society show, in any peaceful way, that the court ruling is not in line with the public’s sense of justice.”
An appeals court in Lamia, central Greece, reduced Korkoneas’ conviction from life to 13 years, on the basis of the new legal code which came into effect on July 1.
That ruling led to his release from the high-security prison in Domokos, near Lamia, as he had already served 11 years of his life sentence in addition to the time he spent in prison pending his initial trial and conviction.
Korkoneas shot and killed Grigoropoulos during a verbal altercation with the 15-year-old and a group of his friends as they were hanging out in the popular neighborhood of Exarchia, on December 6, 2008.
According to the case file, Korkoneas fired twice with his revolver in the direction of the group and one of the bullets rebounded off a cement structure and hit Grigoropoulos in the chest, killing him instantly. His death sparked days of street riots and vandalism in Athens.
