The trial for the tragic death of 3-year-old Angelos from Heraklion, Crete is expected to continue on May 12, after the court decided to adjourn the proceedings. The horrific acts that led to the child’s death caused shock when the detailed indictment was presented in the courtroom. According to local media neakriti.gr, beginning today’s proceedings, the prosecutor read in detail the injuries, abrasions and bruises found on the small body of the child, while according to the indictment, the mother and her partner gave him sedatives so he wouldn’t react to the abuse and his screams wouldn’t be heard by neighbors.
Shocking details emerge in little Angelos’ death – Defendants deny charges
The trial of the case began with requests submitted by the defense attorneys for the mother and her former partner. The mother’s defense requested that the pediatrician who monitored the child before he came with his mother to Heraklion be summoned, in order to determine whether little Angelos was being abused previously.
On behalf of the mother’s partner, his attorney requested that both the forensic pathologist who compiled the forensic examination and the radiologist who signed the radiological review be summoned, during the period when the child was hospitalized at PAGNI.
In his statements, the defense attorney for the mother’s former partner, Vassilis Noulezas, stated that the defendant had never hit the child and that he regrets not reporting the child’s mother for the abuse of little Angelos, while regarding the day the child was transferred unconscious to PAGNI, he maintained that he fell down the stairs by himself.
For her part, the defense attorney for the biological father, Elisavet Panagiotidon, said that the father had also never hit little Angelos and that he had not seen his biological child since December 2023. However, both the mother and her former partner, as well as the child’s biological father, denied the charges.
What the defendants’ lawyers argued
A request for personal testimony from the forensic pathologist and radiologist who conducted the examination on little Angelos was submitted during the trial that began today in Heraklion by the defense attorney for the 44-year-old partner of the child’s mother, 13 months after his tragic death.
“We submitted a request to summon the forensic pathologist and radiologist who conducted the forensic examination so that it can be clearly proven who actually caused the injury either with a blow or with an object or with hands,” noted the 44-year-old’s lawyer Vassilis Noulezas. “What interests us most is for them to explain to us in person how the hematoma, the edema was caused, which in my opinion was the result of previous blows and in any case of earlier chronology,” he said, arguing that the child had not received any pharmaceutical treatment since “his mother did not provide” for such a thing.
“The radiologist should explain to us how the child died,” continued Mr. Noulezas, stating that according to his client, on the day the 3-year-old boy was found unconscious in his home, “he had fallen down the stairs.” “He’s not certain whether he hit the table or not,” Mr. Noulezas said, who argued that Angelos’s death was the result of older injuries. At the same time, he characterized his client as “sensitive” and “timid,” noting that 90 people have testified pre-investigatively.
The lawyer for Angelos’s biological father, Elisavet Panagiotidon, argued that her client is wrongly in the position of defendant. She maintained that her client had no direct contact with his child, attributing the charges to slander from the 3-year-old’s mother. “He had contact until the age of 8 months, at some point it was naturally and practically impossible for him to engage in acts of child abuse,” she stated.
Arriving at court with heads bowed
Earlier this morning, Angelos’s mother and her partner were led with bowed heads, under strict security measures and escorted by police officers, minutes apart, to the Heraklion Crete Court Building. Outside the Heraklion court building, citizens and members of a newly established association against child abuse, called “Pioneer Angelos,” were present. The association was founded with the goal, as members said, “so there won’t be another Angelos who didn’t get to enjoy life.”
