“Speaking of Eye about arbitrary and town-planning problems that made it difficult to evict residents, then what can we say about Kinet? And, despite all this, residents were evacuated in Kineta on the same day, there was time and the necessary evacuation network, ”said the court about the fateful day on July 23, 2018, forensic expert Dimitris Liotsios.

The appellant, who is in his 13th hearing in the three-member Misdemeanor Tribunal, which is hearing 21 defendants in the case tragedy in Matireceived questions today from the then commander of the Joint Operations Coordination Center, Ioannis Fostieris, who is not represented by a lawyer.

The forensic expert, referring to what was known about the complexity of the removal plan due to urban development problems in Mati, reiterated in response to a related question by Mr. Fostieris that the only difficult point in the area is Kokkino Limanaki: “The rest of the territory is straight, there are entrances and roads. There is no particular town-planning problem in the area: there are roads, long sections, entrances. If we are talking about Mati, what can we say about Kineta? And despite all this, nothing happened in Kinet. (no one was in danger). There was a necessary evacuation network and time to evacuate residents.”

According to Mr. Liozio, ESKE was informed in time by the first leader of the danger that threatened him, and therefore that there was room for action and to prevent the tragic development that it ultimately accepted. “Everyone knew about everything, and this is documented,” the expert told Mr. Fostieri, noting that they received notification from the chief both by phone and by radio. He also enthusiastically said that the fire chiefs “begged for ground and air forces.”

And another trigger listed the actions that were not taken that day and the importance of a timely and immediate response to the incident. Mr. Liotios cited the lack of ground-based firefighting forces, delayed air response, and delayed dispatch of reinforcements despite calls from fire chiefs.

He also stressed that the state apparatus was not put on alert in time. However, the witness focused on failure to dispatch aircraftwith the exception of one that did not arrive until 18:10 and 18:20, and the importance of the immediate elimination of the incident that led to the destruction.

“From 16:41 to 18:05, that is, about an hour and a half, the fire spreads over a distance of 2.5 kilometers. Then, after the fire crossed Marathon Avenue, it became more difficult to extinguish it,” said the expert, along with the defendant, then fire chief Nea Makri, intervening by telling the president that visibility was poor, “because of the airy soil, we could not see”.

The witness, indeed, at some point with an emotional charge, said that it was incorrect to say that the fire brigade could not do something. “Many of our colleagues have donated to this cause. Nowhere is it written that we are not doing something. How many of our colleagues died to save lives? The war memorial is full. We insult these heroes when we say that nothing happened.”

Regarding the issue of aerial surveillance, which was carried out on that day by flying club boats, since GEA was not notified in time, Mr. Liotsos, during interrogation by Mr. Fostieris, asked the former head of ESKE whether there was an attempt to conduct surveillance