Trial on the fire in Mati: the testimony of relatives of the victims is shocking

“Some should be in prison, while others should be immediately removed from their posts,” these were the words of Aristide Keruveym, whose testimony shocked everyone present in court at the trial of the fire in Mati, which claimed the lives of 104 people in 2018 .

A witness who lost his mother, sister and two minor children at the age of five spoke of his experience searching for his victims until he found himself in the agonizing position of identifying their bodies. “I want no one to go through what my family and I went through. They don’t know what it’s like to collect half-burnt toys in the garden. You have to evaluate what girls’ things need to be thrown away and what to give away,” the witness said, adding to another part of his testimony, “Those of us who are left live in torment. There are people like me here and you have to protect us, we are the victims, mister judge.”

At the beginning of his court testimony, Mr. Cherubim said, “I survived all the fires in the summer. There was always a fire engine there. There was none that day. cleaning roadsides from dry weeds.I live in Athens.When the fires started, the mayor of Rafina-Pikermio went on television and said that evacuation was not needed, and even asked us not to drive around the city so as not to interfere with fire engines.There were helicopters that and did not rise. All departments had time to notify people, but they watched people burn alive. They said that the fire was moving towards Dionysus. Until that time, the fire was still far away … “.

Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos voiced the words of experts. The minister was immediately caught in a lie and a desire to shift the blame to the victims of the fire. For which he was almost beaten by indignant people.

The witness spoke about how he communicated with his mother after seeing on TV that a fire had started. “I was told by my mom, whom I contacted at 6:30 p.m., that they were seeing flames. I told her to get up and go. I didn’t say a word because every second was critical. They were able to leave within the next five minutes “They met other people there. One couple’s car caught fire, and soon they and my family were burned to death,” he said.

During his testimony, Mr. Cherubimos spoke of the endless efforts he made, calling the relevant institutions and hospitals to find out the fate of his loved ones.

“I called the fire brigade countless times… At some point I called the coast guard, but after numerous calls they never answered. The first responder told me that they were not in the know and advised me to call the police I was advised to call the Nea Makris medical center, the hospitals where the bodies were taken,” the witness said and continued his testimony, “As I found out later, around 09:00, a group of volunteers offered to help the fire brigade in searching for the bodies. and a complete lack of order. All this theater was played out when they already knew that there were dead … “.

“Road of death” – on this narrow and winding road, traffic police sent dozens of cars. At some point, the fire overtook cars that became the grave of dozens of people. The temperature was such that iron melted, and aluminum from the engine and disks spread for several meters.

Then he talked about the times when he had to identify the bodies of his people. Mr. Cherubimos was only able to identify the bodies of his relatives late at night. “About two in the morning, the house was opened, I didn’t find anyone inside, my sister’s car was at home, I saw several bodies covered with a white sheet 50 meters away,” he said, “There was a couple right across the road, completely burned out, in plain sight, not even covered. The police told me that there were two women and two children under the sheet. I understood that they were my relatives. But they told me that they were young women. I asked for an ID, and then there was a difficulty, because that, on the one hand, they did not have gloves, and on the other hand, they said that they did not want to disturb the scene of the crime.In the end we succeeded, I identified my sister, mother and one of my children, the second child was strongly burnt. The bodies were white… They extinguished the children with a fire extinguisher, is this normal? This is what the officers wrote in their report: they found the bodies and emptied the fire extinguisher of the patrol car on him. My sister’s purse was intact, and I asked for identification. The investigator arrived l at 12 noon. The death certificate says 12:30 pm. The bodies were discovered at 7 pm. This was done because some people in the fire department felt it was right to contract directly with a particular funeral home for 62,000 euros, despite the fact that other funeral homes were offered for free.”

Speaking about the state’s attitude during these hours, Cherubimos called the meeting at the fire department’s coordination center with Alexis Tsipras “theatre”. “It was terribly hypocritical and offensive,” he said. “We waited 4.5 years, during which the case file turned into a tangled ball, and all they did was change the Criminal Code and make sentences for the accused more favorable. The only positive thing was the creation of the 112 service. To create 112. .. it took the lives of 104 people,” he added.

Video of the beginning of the fire that burned down Mati

Concluding his testimony, Cherubimos said: “Today we came here to hold a trial, but we don’t know how many victims there were. We were told that 104 people died. I’m surprised that no one talks about victims who have not been identified. In four and a half years, Mati’s case has turned into a tangled tangle.I don’t blame your court, I blame the state and the legal framework.Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty,but there are people like us who are victims.Someone is more to blame , and some less. Some should have been in prison for a long time, but in their conscience they should have been convicted the very next day. “

The path along which the fire moved from the place of ignition to the shore

After that, a woman who lost her sister and niece in a deadly fire came forward as a witness, and she and her nephew miraculously survived. “Nobody was there, everything was on fire, not even the birds were flying,” the witness said, and described how she ended up locked in her home in Nea Wutza when the garage door jammed and she couldn’t get out.

“At about 10 pm, they knocked on my door, they were representatives of the Alfa TV channel. They asked me:“ Are you alive? ”I said yes, went downstairs and saw charred bodies in cars, only their ashes. Outside the house not even a bird flew until 11:30,” the witness said, and then described how her sister and niece, who lived in a neighboring house, fled after calling the police, but could not escape the flames. Her nephew, according to the witness, was the one who found them seriously injured on the street, and when he tried to take them to the hospital, the police gave him instructions and sent him straight into the fire. “My sister was screaming in pain. My nephew didn’t listen to the police, instead he went to Marathonos Avenue, took them to the Evangelismos hospital, where they were intubated, and we were told to wait for them to die. I was lucky that I escaped, I I could have burned down in the house if I hadn’t closed the garage door, or driven away in the car and burned down, like my sister and niece.”

A little earlier, Alexander Floros spoke about the superhuman efforts that he and his family made to save themselves. According to the witness, together with their relatives they managed to get to the shore. They saw thick smoke that descended from the side, new and new people constantly came to the beach, and visibility worsened every second. “We entered the sea, at some point we lost the bottom, we couldn’t see anything. We swam, trying to stick together, the wind got stronger over time. We tried to stay closer to each other. Sparks fell, pine cones flew into the water “At some point, it became very, very difficult for us to breathe. We heard the planes and thought that they were coming to save us, we called for help. It was like that …”, Mr. Floros testifies. He said that they began to lose hope and tried to stick together, not knowing where they were going …

The story of Elena from Donbass, who left the fire of war, but fell into the fire of a fire that destroyed her house.

“After many hours we saw the lights of lanterns in the distance. We sailed to the port of Rafin, they were the lights of a ship. A fishing boat was approaching. From the side we were illuminated by the light of a lantern. The children turned blue from the cold. They gave us blankets. I saw grandfather, his body floated in in the sea next to our boat … They pulled the woman out, gave her artificial respiration, she did not survive … They pulled us ashore, from shock we could not remember to call one of our own … We are bad “we saw several ambulances parked on the shore. There we saw black plastic bags that were already closed … If we had stayed in the house, we would have burned alive. There was such a temperature that iron was melting … “, she said she added in a trembling voice that in all the time she tried to save herself and her family, she did not see a single representative of the authorities. “The only uniformed person I saw was the coast guard at 11 pm in Rafina harbor,” she said.

Former Governor of Attica Rena Duru, one of 20 accused in the Mati fire case

Tomorrow, among others, Mrs. Vukaki Varvara, who lost her husband Gregory Fitro and two children in a deadly fire, is expected to appear in court.

Related materials:

Tragedy in Mati: truth and lies

Mati: Investigation 4 years later, when will the perpetrators be punished?

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