The 46-year-old woman accused of participating in the deadly arson attack at the Marfin branch on Stadiou Street was taken to the prison cell. The temporary detention warrant was signed by the investigator and the prosecutor as soon as the apologetic procedure was completed, with the reasoning — as reported by ERT — characterizing the woman as “particularly dangerous and committed to the group’s action plan.”
The accused, a permanent resident of Britain in recent years, was brought before the investigating judge on Tuesday morning, having been given a deadline last Friday. Her lawyer, Kostas Papadakis, had earlier filed a multi-page apologetic memorandum , in which the supportive role attributed to her is completely rejected. Responding to questions, the 46-year-old declared herself innocent : she admitted that she was at the demonstration, denied any involvement in the incidents and claimed that she knew her co-defendants from the anarchist community.
Shortly before the plea, her sister had testified as a witness. She described how the two women did indeed pass by the bank building that day, but were not there when the attack occurred.
The crucial area of dispute is the evidence — and in particular the photographic material. The defense argues that the police analysis does not lead to an identification but to limited support of similarity, and that no evidence establishes with certainty the presence of the accused near the bank at the time of the arson. It further recalls that the exact same material had been examined in 2022 and had resulted in a prosecutor’s acquittal .
A report has been submitted to the case file by the technical advisor appointed by the 46-year-old, digital evidence analyst and professor at the School of Judges Giorgos Karathanasis . His conclusion is that the digital evidence does not differ from that of the beginning of 2022 and that there is no identification of the accused with “person C” in the photo used by the police as a basis for comparison. Two more defense witnesses have also been proposed.
Mr. Papadakis announced that “in the coming days we will file an appeal against the temporary detention order” , expressing the wish that the vindication will come as soon as possible. He described his client’s reaction as “heartbreaking”, noting that he is also thinking about her child who is in London . For the two other defendants, he said that he knew them only by sight, while he described the decision as inconsistent with the legal data and the evidentiary material of the case.
Asked what had changed since 2022, he focused on an anonymous email — the only, as he said, new element. He described it as unacceptable due to its anonymity and vague, as it does not describe specific criminal acts or clarify the source of its information. He recalled that the 2022 investigation had also begun with an anonymous telephone complaint, only to end in an acquittal. As for the day’s events, he placed his client at Marfin more than half an hour before the incidents, with her leaving Syntagma as early as one and a half, along with her sister and a friend of theirs.
The 46-year-old’s path to Greek justice began at London’s Gatwick Airport , where she was arrested after an Interpol red notice was activated. Before the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, she chose to waive all legal remedies provided to her by Anglo-Saxon law, accepted the extradition request and signed a commitment not to withdraw. She was transferred to Greece a few days ago.
In the same case, two 42-year-olds have already been remanded in custody, accused of being accomplices and held in Malandrino and Nafplio prisons. The arrests resulted from a new investigation by ELAS, sixteen years after the incident, with evidence that was re-evaluated by the competent services and forwarded to the Justice Department.
May 5, 2010 remains one of the darkest dates of the last fifteen years. Three employees lost their lives in the burning Marfin store: Angeliki Papathanasopoulou , four months pregnant, Paraskevi Zoulias, and Epaminondas Tsakalis .
