Six out of 21 defendants found guilty of manslaughter in deadly Mati fire dismissed with fines, drawing families' ire

A first-instance misdemeanor court found 6 of 21 defendants guilty over the deadly fire in Mati in 2018, giving most of them sentences of over 100 years but releasing them without bail on Monday.

Four of the six defendants were given sentences of 111 (one hundred eleven) years each. The court decided that of the 111-year sentences, they needed to serve only 5 years, which were payble at specific rates per day. Each of the four will pay nearly 40,000 euros

each. The remaining two received 3 and 15-year sentences.

The decision drew the ire of the families of victims, who shouted at the judges sarcastically, "Bravo! Bravo!" Police had to intervene when some of the audience members moved against the defendants, who were escorted out through the door used by the judges. Victims' families shouted at court, "They should have jailed themselves! All innocent? There is no justice!".

The deadly fire at Mati in 2018 claimed 104 lives and left many injured.

Those found guilty included Sotiris Terzoudis, then chief of the Fire Brigade (manslaughter by negligence and bodily harm by negligence for the helicopter diversion) Vassilis Mattheopoulos then deputy chief (manslaughter by negligence for the death of 9 people at sea), Ioannis Fostieris, commander of the Unified Operations Coordination Center (guilty of manslaughter by negligence), Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, former head of the Attica Fire Services, and Charalambos Chionis, former commander of the Fire Services of Eastern Attica (manslaughter by negligence for 102 people and bodily injury by negligence of 32 people) as well as Konstantinos Angelopoulos, resident of Daou-Penteli from whose house yard the fire started.

The court acquitted Fire Service officials Christos Golfinos, Philippos Panteleakos, Damianos Papadopoulos, Christos Lambris, Christos Drosopoulos, Georgios Portozoudis, and Stefanos Kolokouris as well as Christos Syrogiannis, then Greek police airborne officer, Ioannis Kapakis, then secretary general of Civil Protection, Rena Dourou, then regional governor of Attica, and then mayors of Marathonas, Ilias Psinakis, and Penteli, Dimitris-Stergiou Kapsalis.

It also found non-guilty Vaios Thanasias, then deputy mayor of the Municipality of Marathonas, Evangelos Bournous, then mayor of Rafina-Pikermi, and Antonis Palpatzis, then deputy mayor of Rafina-Pikermi.

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