Mayor files indictment over 2017 Kythira fire

In the wake of the publication of what appeared to be damning audio recordings by Kathimerini, the mayor of Kythira, Efstratios Harhalakis, filed an indictment on Tuesday against all persons responsible for the devastating fire that ripped across the island in 2017.

The move came after new judicial investigations were launched last week into the wildfires that struck Mani in the Peloponnese and Kythira in 2017, following claims by former fire service chief Vassilis Matthaiopoulos, revealed by Kathimerini, according to which water-dropping aircraft were not dispatched to those fires as part of a bid to discredit a senior fire service official at the time. 

Kathimerini revealed excerpts of taped conversations between Matthaiopoulos and fire service investigator Dimitris Liotsios, in which the former can be heard saying that the two areas were deliberately left without aerial support.

Speaking to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency on Tuesday, Harhalakis stressed that “the indictment emphasizes that there should be a criminal investigation into all the parties involved in these conversations and into what was said.”