The families of the victims of the deadly Mandra floods have filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, requesting the annulment of the decision of the three-member misdemeanor appeals court last October.
“Today, January 7, 2025, through our legal representatives, we submitted an application to the prosecutor of the Supreme Court for the annulment of the decision of the three-member misdemeanor court of appeals, which issued an acquittal for the defendants in the case of the deadly flood in Mandra,” the legal representatives of the victims’ families stated in their announcement.
The annulment is being sought regarding the part of the decision that acquitted the defendants of the charge of negligent homicide. “We firmly believe that this decision contains serious legal errors, deficiencies and contradictions, both in its reasoning and in its conclusions. For this reason, it must be annulled. For our part, we will exhaust every legal remedy provided by law and procedure to protect and restore the memory of our wrongfully lost loved ones,” read the announcement.
The appellate court sentenced three defendants convicted in connection with the 2017 Mandra floods, which claimed the lives of 25 people. The court sentenced former Mandra Mayor Ioanna Kriekouki to 14 months in prison while imposing 18-month sentences on the former head of the Building Inspection Office and the regional employee responsible for oversight.
The appellate court’s sentences were lighter than those of the first-instance court (which ranged from 4 to 6 years, depending on the case), as the defendants were only convicted of causing a flood and not of negligent homicide, for which they had been convicted at first instance.
