If one of the leaders had warned them on July 23, 2018 about the approaching fire, things could have turned out differently. The house he rented in Neo-Vutzas-o. George Kairis he and his wife were only a block from Marathon Avenue. The wife, however, did not have time to leave. “People didn’t burn down because they stayed to save their property. People didn’t have time to leave.” Mr. Kairis said “K”., two years after the fatal fire. “From the very beginning we were screaming that we were allowed to be burned.” Yesterday, together with other fire victims, victims of fire and relatives of the victims, he was found near house 9 in the courts of Evelpidon, where in the courtroom 6th Tripartite Criminal Court of Athens trial will begin. Inseparability prevailed. The room, small and unsuitable, could hardly accommodate the numerous defendants and their lawyers, how could it accommodate civil plaintiffs or the public in the hall? Some noted that even a voluminous dossier did not fit there. The microphones did not work well, the lawyers, who could not enter the premises, tried to eavesdrop through the windows.

“I am ashamed of the country in which I live,” Mr. Kairis stresses about the image he saw. “They didn’t respect either the martyrs or the burnt with health problems. Didn’t responsible people know that this whole world would exist? Are they trying to offend our dignity, belittle the event?”

Citizens who survived the fire in East Attica in 2018, mourned relatives or friends, or were themselves seriously injured, they said “K” that with yesterday’s procedure, they once again experienced a lack of care from the state apparatus, or that their trust in the justice system, which had already been tested after a long tug-of-war about whether the accused would be charged with serious crimes or misdemeanors, was shaken.

“I felt sad. The incredible absence of any seriousness, as there was then the absence of the state, so I felt today,” says Giannis Oikonomidis, whose house in Mati was completely destroyed by fire, says of yesterday. “I was hoping there would be some serious leadership, that you would feel like you are really in court. It was very heartbreaking and was a sign of discredit on the subject, I understand that. There was no feeling that the worst moment of the Greek state in peacetime was judged here, but there was an impression that everything was done on foot,” he adds. “They had four years to organize the process, they had to prepare,” says Nikos Yiannopoulos, who lost his mother in Mati. He also blames the Ministry of Justice for yesterday’s image in the courts. They have a long way to go before the trial ends with over 200 witnesses, even if arrangements are made to change rooms. Mr. Oikonomides emphasizes that the purpose of this whole process is to share responsibility at the end. “I think it’s four years to punish the perpetrators, to no longer mourn the victims,” ​​emphasizes Mr. Kairis.