Kos: “Everyone said I killed her, but God took pity on me and the truth came out” says the man who was unjustly imprisoned for murder

From the first moment he shouted about his innocence, but no one believed. He stubbornly denied his guilt but justice sent him to prison, where he remained for three years, before the ultimate reversal that vindicated him.

The man who was initially accused of murdering his 43-year-old girlfriend in 2014 in Kos spoke to protothema.gr saying that “there is a God, after all. God took pity on me and helped reveal the truth. Indeed, now I can say that I feel vindicated after much suffering. No one believed me to be innocent. Everyone thought I killed her and they put me in jail unjustly.”

About the years he spent behind the bars he says: “Three years of my life I spent back in prison while I was innocent and I cried out, but no one listened to me. They were the most difficult years of my life. There is nothing more cruel than being “baptized” a murderer without having committed any crime. I felt my honor and dignity being destroyed and I couldn’t do anything. My children were upset to hear that their father was a murderer.”

“This woman was my friend, I lived with her and there was no way I would harm anyone. I want to continue my life and leave behind this nightmare that will mark me forever” he concludes.

The great upheaval in the crime of Kos

As the “Demokratiki” newspaper revealed today, a Pakistani who was arrested last July in Germany for shoplifting is the perpetrator of the 43-year-old’s murder. The revelation was made by his palm print while the confession of the crime followed.

In April 2023, “Demokratiki” revealed that the non-involvement of the 54-year-old, who was sentenced in June 2015 to life imprisonment, in the heinous crime was proven. So he was released with the restrictive conditions of not leaving the country and appearing once a month at the police station of his place of residence.

The evidence was fingerprints taken from bathroom tiles next to the 43-year-old’s lifeless body and belonged to a Pakistani man who lived with his countrymen in a first-floor flat in the block of flats where the crime was committed.

In the previous trial before the Mixed Court of Appeal of the Dodecanese, a police officer had testified that the specific crime could not have been committed by the accused within 6 minutes, specifically from 01.38 when he left his job at a bakery until 01.44 when he called to inform for the crime the Authorities. The Court had ordered to examine the footage from the cameras of the pastry shop where the accused worked to the scene of the crime and further to declassify the phone calls made on mobile phones.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (7th Digital Evidence Examination Department) duly submitted a laboratory expert report, confirming the defendant’s claims, which showed that he was calling his partner and that he was not justified in having committed the crime at the time it was allegedly committed, as he was in his work!

The timeline of the case

On April 14, 2014 at 13.54 the Kos Security Department was notified by the Kos Police Department that a woman had been found dead in the Platani area. The police went to the scene at 14.00, where the 54-year-old man was waiting for them, who, trembling, was shouting: “They slaughtered her, guys, I can’t believe it, who did it guys?”.

The 54-year-old led the police to his home, where the 43-year-old’s body was found in the bathroom. The corpse was in a supine position, was naked from the waist down and her underwear was pulled down to the knees and bore a transverse incision about eight to ten centimeters long in the vulva region, a cutting instrument wound in the carotid region and a incision on the outer side of the left breast.

Officers found that there were no signs of tampering on the apartment door, nor on the living room patio door, and that the house key was on the outside of the door, which was open. The 54-year-old claimed that he opened the apartment door with his keys, as well as the balcony door, which was closed but not locked. He claimed to have opened the balcony door, calling for help from the neighbours.

The 54-year-old, who was previously in a pastry shop, where he works, a short distance from the scene of the crime, presented an alibi. His employer confirmed that he was at work, while the same emerged from the search of the store’s security cameras, as well as the examination of employees.

His defense attorneys insisted on the fact that the investigations carried out showed that he was at work at the time the crime was committed, while they further argued that the killer is at large and the DNA tests did not reveal any evidence against him, while genetic material from an unknown man was found on the victim’s fingernail, right hand and pants.

A bread knife, 31 cm long, was found in the kitchen area, which was placed in a glass with other washed cutlery and which, as it was found, had dried blood around the point where the blade joins the handle, as well as skin tissue on his teeth.

According to neighbors’ statements, they heard voices (in Romanian…) and a call for help from the particular apartment around one in the afternoon and a few minutes later (around half past one), her partner appeared shocked and trembling, saying that he found her murdered .