A paradoxical incident unfolded at the Single-Member Criminal Court of Appeal in Thessaloniki, where in a case of robbery against an elderly man, a friend of the accused appeared and not himself.

This, as it turned out, was done in order to mislead the court and to challenge the evaluation of the victim, who was a key prosecution witness, according to the APE.

All this seems to have been made known to the defendant’s lawyer, who during the evidentiary process revealed the “trick”, attributing it to his defense, while taking responsibility and apologizing to the court.

The prosecutor of the headquarters spoke about a mockery that is not in line with the legal profession. “There are limits, which have been exceeded here”, he stressed and asked to forward the minutes of the trial to the Thessaloniki Bar Association, in order to consider the imposition of any disciplinary sanctions against the lawyer.

The Chronicles

The trial began on Wednesday and during the hearing of the case in the courtroom he became a friend of the accused, while the latter – a 45-year-old – was standing outside the courtroom, as he had been released on parole.

The 45-year-old was arrested a few days after the robbery – which took place in 2015 in Aristotelous Square – when he accidentally recognized the victim and alerted the police.

During his examination by the court, the elderly man was called to identify the (wrong) accused. He replied that many years have passed since then and they can not testify with certainty if it is the same person. At that point, the 45-year-old’s lawyer revealed that it was not the same person.

The court adjourned and decided to retry the trial, from scratch. Today, when the case was announced, the president of the court, addressing the 45-year-old, asked “who will come to be tried today;”, while he asked for his identity.

Although the elderly man did not appear to testify, the case was extradited and the accused denied involvement in the robbery. She, according to the indictment, was expelled by physical violence from 5-6 people. The court finally acquitted the 45-year-old due to doubts, accepting the proposal for admission.

With information from ΑΠΕ