The family of 23-year-old Jason Lalaounis feels disappointed by the sentence imposed on the policeman responsible for the death of the young man outside the Parliament.
Devastated, the young man’s mother made statements outside the court after a three-year suspended prison sentence was imposed on the police driver, who in the Parliament’s official vehicle violated the Code of Conduct and caused a traffic accident.
Characteristically he said:
“This is how Greek justice works. There is no. They didn’t take away the diploma either, as an example, to show drivers that there is a penalty for driving illegally. Traffic accidents will never end the way we are going, nobody gets punished. I am so angry, disappointed.
Sure I did not expect anything from the Greek justice system but I wanted to believe that maybe something would change, at the last moment, that they would at least take away his diploma. That you can continue to drive normally when you’ve killed someone on my road is unthinkable.”
Video with what her statements
The policeman’s apology yesterday
“Say I’m sorry. A young man left for no reason. I wish I had the strength to get in touch with the family sooner.” These were the first words of the driver of the parliamentary car that collided in 2021 outside the Parliament with the car of Jason Lalaounis, sending the 23-year-old to his death.
“I have been in the service since 2018 until that day I entered from this point every day and no one had ever told us that it was forbidden. On that day he had a plenary session. Along with the escorts it may have had 600 cars and we were informed by email that the entrance from Amalias was closed. They told us that we could not go from Kriezotou to exit Akadimia and enter. The only path left is the one we took. No one had ever mentioned to us why you enter from here, it is forbidden. We were sent a message from the service three days later that no one will enter through this entrance unless an official person is present.” said the accused, provoking the question of the president of the seat who asked: “So if there is an official he will do this?”.
As the accused explained, this “is at the discretion of the police officers”. In fact, shortly afterwards he denied leaving the scene or abandoning the victim.
“A colleague from the traffic police told us to move the vehicle. When we say I moved the vehicle, it was half a meter before the bar and we moved it a meter after. We called an ambulance, it came within 2-3 minutes. What we have been taught is that when someone has crashed, we don’t move helmets like that and we tried not to let people come from above. I remember the ambulance came, the child got in and went to the Evangelism.”
Describing the traffic accident, he explained how they stopped in the lane and a taxi beckoned them over. “We could not imagine that a machine will pass at such a speed. I remember we stopped in front of the taxi he waved to us and we started. At the moment of impact we were slowly climbing, it was the moment we were moving. The engine of the car was off the pavement and as soon as the engine hit us we stopped. We didn’t realize that we had a traffic accident, as soon as we got out and saw the machine we were surprised.”
Chairman: You hadn’t seen the machine?
Accused: No, we didn’t notice the machine. We looked both left and right of the taxi. At the time we made the maneuver we were looking to the right and did not see her.
Chairman: If you can estimate the speed of the machine?
Accused: I can’t appreciate the speed. From what I read the machine has five speeds, its top speed is 170. Only the car 1.5 ton weight to be moved. I can’t imagine he was going at low speed and all this happened.
“This stanza, if indeed it was unorthodox, was followed by all until that day. If you ask me, a traffic warden was needed every day there,” he said at the point of his apology with Jason’s father shouting: “In order not to lose three minutes of your life, you killed my son.”
Concluding his plea, the defendant said: “I wish I had the strength to communicate earlier. I’m a father too, I can’t imagine my life without my son, I can’t imagine what these people have been through.”
