Greek Court Rules Crime Reporter Was Murdered for His Journalism
Source: Balkan Insight
A court in Greece has ruled that veteran journalist Giorgos Karaivaz was murdered in 2021 because of his journalistic status, in a contract killing.
The Mixed Jury Court of Athens decision said: “This was a contract killing that was linked to his journalistic status, and [which] led the perpetrators to commit this offence against him.”
The 800-page-long ruling was drafted in November but was not published until Thursday, Roy Pavlea, a lawyer for the mother and sister of Karaivaz, told BIRN.
The killers’ failure to remove valuables from the victim showed that their motive was not robbery, the court said. The absence of any other motive, as well as the connections that Karaivaz had acquired to gather information, demonstrate that it was a contract killing linked to his journalistic status, the court noted.
In July a court freed two defendants in the case, brothers aged 41 and 49, citing doubts about the case against them. The two were alleged to have killed the well-known journalist in 2021 outside his home. The authorities have not named them.
The Karaivaz family’s lawyers appealed against this first-instance decision, which was rejected. In September, they visited Supreme Court prosecutor Georgia Adeilini and again appealed the decision. This was again rejected, in mid-November.
Pavlea commented sarcastically that, as the first-instance decision was about 800 pages long, “‘bravo’, really, to the Supreme Court prosecutor who managed to read it within three days.
“Regarding the first-instance decision, I want to stay with the fact that the [court] has recognised that Giorgos Karaivaz was murdered because of his journalistic status and that alone,” he added.
The family claims the first-instance court did not properly assess all the documents, evidence and testimonies, not taking them into account.
A veteran reporter who specialised in police and crime issues, Karaivaz appeared daily on a TV show and was also the founder and owner of bloko.gr, a website that focused on issues of law enforcement.
He had connections within the Greek underworld and was a key witness in the 2015-17 National Intelligence Service investigation into police connections to corruption circles.
The original article: belongs to Balkan Insight .
