Evidence is leading to different conclusions than what the mother of the child found dead in Palaio Faliro claims, as there are serious indications that the death was a criminal act, according to what the forensic examination revealed, and according to Dimitris Galenteris, who spoke to ERTNews and Nina Kassimati. “Water and sand were found in the lungs,” he stated characteristically, emphasizing that “this alone indicates drowning, and specifically on a beach, not in open sea.”
Mr. Kalenteridis spoke of a clear discrepancy between the findings and the mother’s version, who maintains that the child fell in the bathroom, hit her head and lost consciousness, before she took her to the beach. As he said, “the injuries found on the skull were inflicted while alive, but are not connected to brain function disorder,” so they don’t support the scenario of losing consciousness from a bathroom fall.
Galenteris on dead girl in Palaio Faliro: “Serious facial injuries – No connection to the death mechanism”
At the same time, he referred to “serious facial injuries,” which however, according to him, “have no relation to the death mechanism” and don’t confirm the mother’s claims either. Mr. Galenteris also pointed out the existence of a chronic pathology, which is expected to be investigated further. As he mentioned, “the question arises as to whether the child was healthy and if this specific pathology could be connected to the mother’s motive to get rid of her.”
“We are facing an abhorrent act,” he noted emphatically, calling for thorough investigation of the death circumstances through the inquiry. “What the mother says doesn’t add up. She needs to start telling the story as it really happened,” he concluded.
Mother faces prosecutor today
The Algerian woman arrested for the death of her three-year-old daughter in Palaio Faliro is being brought before the prosecutor today, Saturday (02/08). The woman claimed that the child was injured in the bathroom, but instead of seeking help, she abandoned her in the sea, as she was afraid because she was illegally in the country. She testified to the Coast Guard, while searches were conducted at her house in Kato Patisia.
In 2022 she had concerned authorities for child endangerment, while the children’s father also reportedly has a history of abuse. The family’s two minor boys are expected to be transferred to a minor protection facility.
The arrest timeline
Developments are rapid regarding the case of the three-year-old girl found dead last Saturday on a beach in Palaio Faliro. The woman with the stroller, who appeared in the video footage, was arrested and as it turned out, she is the child’s mother, of Algerian origin, who was illegally in the country. She claimed that the little girl had an accident at home and she left her on the beach to avoid arrest.
Coast Guard personnel as well as men from the homicide department are transferring the evidence they collected from the apartment in Kato Patisia. Specifically, they found the slippers that the 32-year-old was wearing on Saturday night, however authorities failed to find the black and white dress with which the girl’s mother had been recorded in the video. At the same time, photo albums and SD memory cards have been collected.
The evidence will be transferred to police forensic laboratories. Authorities were inside the apartment for more than eight hours along with the Prosecutor. As part of the investigation, they spoke with all tenants and owners who were in the building today, in order to gather any evidence that could help in the complete clarification of the case.
Her testimony was not completed – She spent the night at Flisvos Coast Guard
At the same time, the 32-year-old remains at the Flisvos Coast Guard Station. Her testimony was not completed yesterday and for this reason she spent the night there and today will be brought before the prosecutor, so that the charges against her can follow. Meanwhile, very important unanswered questions remain regarding the time of the child’s death, whether she left the house while still alive, in a semi-unconscious state or whether she was already dead when the 32-year-old transported her with the stroller to the waterfront and finally left her in the sea.
“I was afraid because I don’t have papers” the mother claimed
New video evidence recorded the movements of the woman from Algeria, on the afternoon of last Saturday, the moment she left from her house in Patisia with her three children and with the little girl in the stroller, to reach the beach. Two hours later, a kiosk camera recorded the mother and her children in P. Faliro with the little girl having pulled down a hat over her face, with the mother perhaps wanting to hide the injuries she already had on her little head. A little later, she was recorded by another camera abandoning the empty stroller in a park in the area, and leaving the scene by taxi with her other two children.
When she was arrested, she reportedly claimed to Coast Guard and Security officers that the little girl who didn’t walk well, was injured at home from a fall and as she feared the possible consequences because she didn’t have papers and instead of seeking help at a hospital, she went and left her in the sea. When asked by police if she felt the child’s body warm when she left her in the sea, she reportedly answered positively.
Giorgos Kalliakmanis, Honorary President of the Police Officers Union of N/E Attica, noted that: “She said that the little child had been injured before at an earlier time in the bathroom. She fell in the bathroom of the house and hit the bathtub and that’s why she had bruises and had a little bump on her forehead, which the coroner said was indeed a previous injury, but it wasn’t what caused death, because according to the forensic examination, death came from drowning.”
The 32-year-old was located through video footage, leaving P. Faliro by taxi. Coast Guard personnel initially located the passenger who had earlier been dropped off by the taxi at the location. Through the hotel he went to, they identified his details and found that he was a tourist from Israel, who was now in another foreign country continuing his vacation.
The Coast Guard spoke with him via WhatsApp and he indicated the point from where he had taken the taxi in central Athens. The Coast Guard went to the taxi stand on Ermou and with the help of other drivers located the driver who had taken the ride. He in turn led them to Patisia, to the point where he left her with her two children, outside the apartment building where she lived and the location was placed under discreet surveillance from the evening.
In the morning, police noticed some movement from the woman, who was preparing a bag and the other two children and came down to take a taxi. There they feared she would leave again and so they intervened and brought her to GADA and subsequently to the Flisvos Coast Guard Station, which is conducting the preliminary investigation.
Vasilis Kikilius, Minister of Maritime Affairs & Island Policy, publicly congratulated the Coast Guard personnel for their immediate and methodical action, stating: “Congratulations to the personnel of the Saronic Port Authority, the Flisvos Coast Guard Station and the Maritime Border Security and Protection Directorate of the Coast Guard for their very fast and methodical work in solving the tragic case with the body of the minor girl in Faliro.”
She had concerned authorities for child endangerment in 2022
The 32-year-old had made repeated asylum requests with rejective decisions while in 2022 she had been charged with child endangerment. Then, a neighbor in another apartment building where she lived in the center, had called the Immediate Action for a little boy who was alone at the building entrance. When police went they found the then 2-year-old boy alone and her inside her apartment where she had stated that she hadn’t realized that the child had left. She was arrested but released free on prosecutor’s orders, while even earlier there were at least 2-3 reports of domestic violence for the Syrian father that he was abusing them.
On July 13, just two weeks before the incident with her daughter, another call was made to Police from her current address where she lives with some Greek man, for intense baby crying, but the police who went to the scene found nothing reprehensible, nor injuries to the children.
