A well-crafted, meticulously organized plan to provoke incidents targeting the police forces was implemented in Rentioutside the Melina Merkouri gym in Rentis on the evening of December 7, 2023.
It included not only preparation, but even instructions so that the police investigation would not be able to identify them after their criminal activity.
“We went to c… the MAT“, one of the main defendants cynically confesses in a conversation that has been recorded after the phone confidentiality has been lifted, and at another point in the shocking dialogue he admits that the episodes were staged and boasts that since they killed a man they are now the toughest.
As can be seen from the case file and the evidence gathered, the organizers and executors of the incidents, which resulted in the murder of the 31-year-old policeman of the MAT Giorgos Lyggeridis, they had a goal that night “to be with the cops» without caring if human life would be lost, as it was.
The key movement of ELAS
The crucial move made on the evening of December 7th was the order to keep all those who were there to watch the Olympiakos-Panathinaikos volleyball match inside the gymnasium.
After the episodes dozens of their protagonists had returned to the field and following the instructions of the organizers they had gotten rid of clothes and items that would encumber their position. A total of 424 people were brought in that night of which 384 gave dna and fingerprints, while they were also checked for powder.
The rest had either refused to give DNA, or were minors (16-17). The only people allowed to leave the stadium that night were the two teams’ delegations, accredited journalists and the under-15s.
At the same time, the police on the same night collected all the objects that the perpetrators had tried to get rid of in order to make their identification impossible or even very difficult.
As noted, while organized fans usually wear their team’s colors and insignia to games, on that night the 150 or so who were privy to the episode’s design were dressed in black and most had means of concealing their features. , using full face, half face hoodseven disposable masks.
When they returned to the gym after their murderous attacks on the police they threw everything they could: Jackets, blouses, masks, gloves, hats, flares were thrown that had not been used, stones. In fact, in the toilets of the stadium, some tried to burn clothes and other items that led to their identification.
The police collected everything, they even searched in garbage cans around the stadium, in greens and everything that was collected was sent to the Forensic Laboratories. There began the process of comparing the data provided by the objects -dna- with the samples of genetic material from those brought.
It is typical that in their statements the defendants now, they answer almost identically to the question why they threw away the clothes and they essentially admit that they did it so that their identification would not be easy. They say they didso as not to be unjustly accused».
The plan of the authors that changed
All this was happening on the field, while Giorgos Lyggeridis was already fighting an unequal battle to stay alive. As he lay prostrate, bleeding profusely, struck by the naval flare which had been shot “straight shot” and had hit him in the femoral artery of the left leg, one of the members of the hooligan criminal organization was targeting him again, this time with a molotov. It hit him on his right leg.
That night, as it appears from the voluminous file, when the incidents occurred near the stadium, there were only two MAT squads. The forces would be reinforced a little later. But the plan of the captains and morale makers changed on the field.
As it has emerged from witness statements – the evidence provided by the three is critical witnesses who testified under protection status– the original plan was to attack the police after the match was over.
However, one of the leaders, with the nickname “Kontos”, entered the field and after talking with the so-called “Omle” and another leading member of the organization, he called the initiates to leave the field at that moment.
The scene is recorded in a video included in the case file, while one of the leaders can be seen texting on his cell phone and two others to make a characteristic movement to get out those who were in the stand.
The police collected a series of videos that have recorded persons and the way they have acted. There are also videos from inside the stadium, from ERT-3, which covered the match on television, from social media, but also from material handed over to the police on a stick showing the faces on the pitch of the stadium who then went outside and took part in the episodes.
At the same time, by taking videos from many cameras of businesses and organizations, it was established the route taken by the organizers of the incidents. From camera to camera, the route “led” to the Karaiskaki stadium.
There were gathered 34 people who are now accused, and there, outside the stadium, they loaded munitions. Naval flares, molotov cocktails, gasoline and they left there for Melina Merkouri in a convoy: About 15 motorcycles flanked the four cars in which the material had been loaded.
As noted, in fact, the specific gym was chosen because it did not have cameras and thus, as they believed, it would be even more difficult to identify them in the episodes. There was no specific reason for the incidents – only that they were planned and took place the day after the 15th anniversary of the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, and the police were the sole target.
Deprivation
The police, after the murder of Giorgos Lyggeridis, proceeded to removing the telephone privacy of specific personswho had already been targeted by their presence on the field.
Some, in fact, were known to the authorities for other cases of offenses related to sports venues, and not only. It is characteristic that one of the current defendants, 12 years ago, when he was 20 years old, had taken part and been convicted of setting fire to a barbershop in Metamorfosi and attacking its foreign owner with a knife.
This particular person is known in the world of hooligans with the nickname “Coconut».
From the recording of phone calls, in fact, movements and relationships between them were established, but their intentions were mapped more clearly on the evening of December 7. M. K.-Th. And two of his friends.
One of the two even tells him at one point about Giorgos Lyggeridis that he went to do his job and was found dead. Then, the defendant curses vulgarly, insulting the memory of the policeman and then mocks.
The dialogues
These dialogues, as happens with other defendants, are essentially a confession of their presence and participation in the incidents. The dialogues of M. K. – Th.
M.K.Th.: With Rentis?
R.: To Rentis?
M.K.-Th.: Wow, we were dizzy at the beginning… oh well…. After all, the episodes happened.
R.:Mmmm
M. K.-Th.: Well, we’re going in again.
R: Mmmm
M.K.-Th.: And at some point they break out MAT again and throw tear gas on the door.
R.: Mmmm
M.K.-Th. : And we were locked inside and tear gas had been thrown inside. We go out an emergency exit over there and see them still outside. I’m going to jump a fence and I see MATatjis and they tell me we’ve stamped on you, we’re going to fuck you, I get down and start running, I couldn’t get away with anything, no one could and they just surrounded us and brought cages.”
In a second dialogue with another person, the following is heard:
X. : For.. Were you out?
M.K.- Th.: Only in some phase, friend, I wasn’t from the beginning.
Following his conversation with X., he insults the memory of the dead Deputy Warden by saying:
X.: Too bad, isn’t it?
M.K.-Th.: Let’s go to go… the beginning… hey.
X.: Well, okay, now he goes to do his job, friend, and let’s just say he was found dead.
M.K.-Th.: Well, now he has a dinner up there with Filopoulos and with Michalis and with Alkis they are all having dinner together.
In the continuation of the same conversation, referring to the events of Rentis, the accused seems to have had knowledge of the plan of the attack and of the murderous intent of the perpetrators and he specifically mentions:
X: And a straight shot huh? Bam.
M.K.-Th.: Yes.
X.: And whoever the favor takes
M.K.-Th.: Ten people went there and emptied everything. Here you morons had forty AK dynamite. It wasn’t just nautical, there were many things that day. Do you know what it’s like to eat forty dynamite now?
X: Did they go for death? They went to kill
M.K.-Th.: Yes, they went to checkmate and there were few checkmates. He only had two YMET platoons of that sort.
X.: I had heard and read, basically, that there were a lot of people outside the stadium that day because of this.
M.K.-Th.: Bullshit, no, that’s not even true.
X: Lies huh? That is, only with the Police?
M.K.-Th.: Fairy tales were like that, they were made up, you moron. At first I had heard of six platoons. I had heard that there were six platoons and something would simply be done with the six platoons.
X.: And at that time they were being beaten? The cops?
M.K.-Th.: Yes, they ate a lot… like the cops, I’m telling you, they put their feet on their heads and left.
However, the accused himself seems to have understood the possible consequences of the fact that everyone was detained on the fateful night at the Melina Merkouri stadium. After all, he himself had been arrested in the past for fan violence.
M.K-.Th. :They put us in a room and we sat like fools, they took gunpowder from us, then they took us elsewhere for finger work and the next day they let us go. The bullshit is I have another one for fan violence.
X.: Huh?
M.K.-Th.: I have a court for fan violence.
X.: For what? For what race?
M.K.-Th.: For Nea Ionia Heraklion.
X.: Well, what were you doing there?
M.K.-Th.: What happened two months ago, they caught us in the middle of the road and found things. Because that’s what we were going for.”
The accused himself appears proud of the act of homicide by complicity, as, as he states, this act is a strong achievement against the respective, the fans of rival groups. In fact, referring to the act of homicide, he speaks in the first person plural with the phrase “We killed a man”
Specifically, the following are mentioned:
X.: Don’t you tell me now who are the strongest fans in Athens?
M.K.-Th.: This moment;
X.: Yes.
M.K.-Th.: Us you moron.
X.: Correct.
M.K.-Th. : We killed a man, what do you say to me now? We and the paoktzides. We and the paoktzides.
X.: Criminal organizations
M.K.-Th.: This is how the other flowers are. The aektzis slaughtered each other. Tell it, you morons, that Aristides has killed Michael, don’t be ashamed.
SOURCE: protothema.gr
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Tags: Lyggeridis Straight shot Grace dialogues accused murder
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