On the day when expert witness Dimitris Liotsios first testified in court about Mati, he was under stress. Despite the fact that he left home very early in a taxi, they got stuck in a traffic jam. When the driver realized who it was, he shook his head. “Dude, be brave. Don’t be afraid of anything. You will hear a lot from lawyers today,” she told him. “Well, why should I be afraid? I heard more and more…” he replied, smiling.

It was February 14, and he thought his testimony would definitely take several days. But it ended only last Wednesday, after 20 meetings with a total duration of 100 hours or more. “There were moments when I felt accused,” he tells K today.

When he became an expert in July 2018, he knew he had to investigate the actions of his colleagues and superiors. How balance sheets will be extremely fragile. But he couldn’t imagine what would happen next. As he told the Ministry of Justice, in addition to the various obstacles that he faced during the investigation, the then head Vassilis Mattaiopoulos summoned him to his office and directly threatened and blackmailed him, asking him to hide the evidence. – and all this while claiming that he acted on the orders of the then political leadership. But Lyotios did not succumb to the pressure. In two expert opinions, he included everything he found. Now, four and a half years later, he was ready to be replaced.

That first day, at 9 am, he sat down in his seat and connected his computer to the monitor to the left of the chair. He prepared a text (150 pages) with what he wanted to testify and prepared it as a presentation. Before hanging up, he took another quick look at the Facebook message sent to him. It was from a woman who lost her child in a fire. If it weren’t for you, things would have gone in a completely different direction. (…) You will have a real memorial service for my son and the dead.” For some of those who lost everything in the fire, Lyotios is the only one who has done his job. That is why the courtroom on the day of his testimony was packed. Such, of course, are the positions of the defendants. Since October, when the trial began, few people have come to the hearings. Almost all of them were there that day.

“Did you feel the accused behind you?” we asked him after he finished his testimony. “Yes,” he replied sharply. “These are people I have known for 25 years. Now all the generals, some active. However, I was determined to report what I found. To not miss anything. And I did it knowing that tomorrow I could be in this position. When you go into a difficult fire, you can make mistakes. Mistakes were made in Mati and we must not hide them.” He himself felt from the first moment that he was indebted to the 104 dead, burn victims, and also to the junior fire officers. “My colleagues tell me to keep going. To not drop. And that gives me courage,” he says.

The President began the meeting by getting acquainted with the conclusions of his expert opinion. The reading took two hours. Perhaps because of the mask he wore and the low volume of the microphones, it was almost inaudible. People came in and out of the hall, but Lyotius had to sit in his place. He didn’t even take off his coat. The room was 4 degrees (the heating system is not able to heat this particular room, as we were told).

In his testimony, he described in detail the fatal mistakes made in the hours before and during the fire. He explained that, realizing the increased risk due to weather conditions, they deployed pilots at airfields, from which they could not distract them later, at critical moments (they could send them to other military airfields that remain open, regardless of weather conditions). That they did not issue a general alert in time, or that they did not conduct aerial reconnaissance as they should have, leaving the area completely undefended. That later they did not give the order for an organized evacuation and even a rescue attempt. He refuted the argument about arbitrary construction and showed that there were passages to the sea (at least 25). “Too many actions have not been taken. If they did, the results would be very different,” he concluded.

He went on to detail the actions of the fire department since the discovery of the Dow fire. He was describing the redirection of a single antenna from Dow to the Kineta refineries when he was interrupted by the defendants’ lawyers. “Madame President, the witness is reading the text. Forbidden,” they said. “Are you awake now? You’ve been reading for two hours,” one of the passers-by shouted meaningfully. The meeting ended after several hours of consultations between the lawyers and the court. They concluded that he can read records, but only checks against them.

At subsequent meetings, at some moments when he was forced to seek and read some information, a certain lawyer interrupted him, saying that he was forbidden to read. “But this is ridiculous. What do you want; Do I know all these facts, parrot? “Let’s tell the penal code from the outside, and then we’ll talk,” he answered her. Now he felt that they were trying to distract him, but continued.

Mistakes were made in Mati, and we should not hide them,” he says and emphasizes that he never thought of giving up. I wouldn’t be okay with my conscience. But I do not hide that I thought about leaving the ward.

He detailed ten aircraft that were already operating in other areas and could be ordered to divert to Doe, as well as twelve aircraft that, although available, were never ordered and remained on the ground. “Why didn’t they get an order?” his president asked about each of them. “I cannot know the reason,” he answered.

His testimony and questions from the prosecutor were followed by attorneys for the prosecution and after the defense of 21 defendants. Some defendants preferred to ask questions to the expert themselves. During the interrogation by the defendant Ioannis Fostieris (then head of the operational coordination center), Mr. Liotsios mentioned another serious problem in air traffic control. “There is a conversation on 17.10 where Mr. Fostieris says he will ask the then minister (Mr. Tosca) about where he will direct Canadair. There are seven more such performances.” The president asked Mr. Fostieris if the political leadership had the right (and knowledge) to interfere with the work of the fire department. “He has the right. When the political leadership is present, we turn to the chief. He is the commander,” the defendant replied. But Mr. Liotios insisted that Mr. Toskas (who is a witness, not the accused) does not have the authority to intervene in the operational work of the security forces.

Some of the lawyers also switched to personal attacks, leaving, among other things, insinuations that he was cooperating with law firms and companies that take on expert opinions. He flatly denied this. “I’m not guilty of anything. I demand respect, as I respect everyone here,” he said at some point in the headquarters with obvious irritation. “Until now I took aspirin when I went home, now I take it before how to come,” he said at another moment, and even some of the audience laughed.

Wednesday, April 19, was the last meeting. Like every morning, he arrived at the court shortly after 8 and stayed in some cafe until 9, when the appellate court room opened. Before the meeting began, he entered the “cell,” as he calls it, for the last time. The small room is a cleaners’ warehouse, right next to the court room, where he was isolated at every break so as not to contact anyone. After the end of the 20th session, he told us that he felt exhausted, but he felt relieved that the cycle closed after 4.5 years. We ask him if he regretted that he undertook the examination. “No way. I would not have a clear conscience if I refused. But I do not hide from you that since then I have thought about leaving the House many times. I am disappointed. I believed in meritocracy, in laying responsibility for made a mistake. But the reality is that the road was full of obstacles. Nobody wanted the truth to come out. And this should not only worry us about Mati, but also in other cases, for example, in the case of Tempe. “

In addition to disappointment, he reveals that he also felt fear during these years. In March 2019, while he was riding a bicycle, the chain came off, it got stuck in the gears and stopped abruptly. Fortunately for him, he was not hurt, but the official delegation of technicians concluded that sabotage had taken place. He sued, publicized the incident, and three months later the car was stolen. “For many months, until I handed over the audio recording of the blackmail to the investigator, a person very close to me knew that somewhere in my house there was a stick that, if something happened to me, he would take it directly to the police and to a specific prosecutor,” he says today. After taking the blackmail conversation to court and when it was made public by “K”, Mr. Liotios faced lawsuits (from both Vassilis Mattaiopoulos and Olga Gerovasilis) as well as constant pressure.

As he tells K, he was pressured both before and during his testimony. After the end of the second session, he was sitting in a cafe opposite the Court of Appeal when one of the defendants walked by. “Dimitrakis, you managed to reverse it. It will feed the game,” he told him. Mr. Liotsios did not react. Too bad he wasn’t even surprised by those words. As mentioned in the audio recording that was presented to the Court, in September 2018, Mr Mattaiopoulos, in an attempt to instruct him, warned him to be careful because he risked being transferred somewhere, and in the first fire he would not be lifted to the air. , in retaliation for the expert opinion. According to Mr. Mattaiopoulos, this happened during two other fires, at Kythira and at Mani, in order for one officer to “clean up” someone else. Then stating that “that’s how games are played.” Mr. Liotsios has already consolidated it.