In May 2010, Maria Karagianni survived an arson attack on the Athens bank branch where she worked. Sixteen years later, she is still waiting for justice for three colleagues who did not.
The attack on the Marfin bank branch came amid rising anger at the financial crisis roiling Greece and the austerity prescribed by its international creditors.
On July 10, two men, both 42 years old, were arrested in Athens on multiple murder charges, while a warrant was issued for a 46-year-old woman living in Britain.
Even now, however, Karagianni remains sceptical after years of let downs and judicial missteps.
The case was reopened in July, amid unconfirmed claims of an anonymous tip-off sent by email.
“It doesn’t convince me,” Karagianni told Greek MEGA TV on July 11. Calling for “substantial evidence”, Karagianni said: “We want the perpetrators to be exposed and taken to where they should be taken, which is to prison.”
Thrasivoulos Kontaxis, a lawyer representing 11 injured survivors and relatives of the victims, said he was “cautiously optimistic” of justice being served.
“It will represent mental redemption, that at the end of this journey someone was actually called upon to pay the price by being punished, at least.”
Three people died in the bank fire, caused by a trio of black-clad, masked individuals who set fire to the building on central Stadiou Street during a protest against the austerity demanded of Greece.
Bank employees Epaminondas Tsakalis, Paraskevi Zoulias and Angeliki Papathanasopoulou were trapped by the flames on the third floor and suffocated to death. Papathanasopoulou was pregnant. Twenty-one others were injured.
In 2013, three bank executives were convicted of manslaughter and bodily harm due to negligence; two were sentenced to 22 years in prison and the third to five years and one month.
Then, in 2016, two men were charged with arson but acquitted due to a lack of evidence. The case was closed, reopened again in 2020, reportedly following an anonymous phone call, only to be shelved again.
None of the three suspects have been named. All have denied any wrongdoing.
Greece’s then prime minister, George Papandreou of PASOK, called the attack a “cruel, murderous act”, but the Communist Party of Greece, KKE, alleged it was a “provocation” staged to discredit the protesters, a claim that took root in some leftist factions of Greek society.
Even now, some on the left have accused the centre-right government of reviving the case only to score political points.
Kostas Kanellopoulos, Senior Researcher at the National Centre for Social Research, said the right has exploited the case to smear the left and protest movements in general.
“The Marfin case has been weaponised to blame demonstrations and the movements and people who protest, who, by and large, lean left,” he said.
But Lawyer Panagiotis Perakis, president of Justice Watch, an NGO that monitors the Greek justice system, said there was nothing “political” about the attack.
Kontaxis, the lawyers for the survivors, said that since 2010, “specific political factions have been attempting to devalue this tragic event and consign it to historical oblivion.”
Authorities admit the initial investigation was marred by failings.
