“Unfortunately, real life sometimes gets the best of even the most inventive and resourceful screenwriter. By his general behavior, cruelty and callousness, he showed complete disregard for the legitimate good of human life. With these words, and addressing the judges of the Thessaloniki Mixed Court of Appeal, prosecutor Leonidas Nikolopoulos requested the 51-year-old AUTH lecturer, who had been under second-degree trial for months, accused of double murder with a man, his 34-year-old wife on one side and her 85-year-old grandmother on the other.

Assessing during his lengthy trial, which exceeded 4 hours, the evidentiary material of the case, unprecedented in the judicial and police annals of the country, the prosecutor of the appellate instance suggested that the defendants be found guilty, as in the first instance, of premeditated murder, serial murder. . This is “a harsh, unforgiving reality, not scenarios, assumptions and conjectures,” the prosecutor said, noting that the death of the twins was the result of arsenic poisoning, which the accused lecturer injected into the water that the two women consumed.

The grandmother and granddaughter died in August 2013 after being admitted to the Papanikolaou Hospital in Thessaloniki, although arsenic poisoning was not initially confirmed. First, an elderly woman died, who was briefly hospitalized, and a few days later her granddaughter. Suspicions of death from poisoning were confirmed by the results of extensive laboratory tests and the exhumation of the bodies. The 51-year-old man was charged and taken into custody in January 2016, and two years later he was sentenced by the Thessaloniki Criminal Court to two years in prison.

“Spew Poison”

Referring to the history of the case, the appeals court prosecutor said that the administration of arsenic began in February 2013 and continued in the nursing home, where the 34-year-old woman “fought an unequal battle for her life.” “He threw poison at his wife,” he said characteristically, referring to the death of an 85-year-old woman, he said it was a “collateral loss” in an attempt by the defendant to mislead the authorities and make it appear that the death was due to food consumed by the women. , which he exclusively managed a 34-year-old mother and an elderly daughter.

“In view of the hardships that befell him, there should have been another person from the closest family circle who would have suffered the same death, motivated by the disorientation of the prosecution authorities. He chose an unfortunate grandmother,” he stressed. As Mr. Nikolopoulos noted in his speech, the 51-year-old geologist, by virtue of his professional status, knew about the deadly consequences of arsenic. Regarding his intake, he said that he “poured” the so-called “clean arsenic” in a bottle of water from which his wife drank, and in the same way administered this substance to an elderly woman who drank water exclusively from the tap. The bottle is designed for her the same.