Policeman 'a monster' says mother of shot teenager

THE mother of a Greek teenager allegedly shot dead by a policeman in an incident that sparked nationwide riots a year ago branded the officer a "monster" during emotional testimony at the opening of his long-awaited trial yesterday.

Tzina Tsalikian said he had regarded her son's life as worth no more than that of a cockroach.

Epaminondas Korkoneas, 38, is charged with fatally shooting Alexis Grigoropoulos, 15, during a night patrol in December 2008 in the bohemian and rebellious Athenian district of Exarchia.

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His squad car partner, Vassilios Saraliotis, 32, is accused of complicity to murder. Both men pleaded innocent yesterday.

The highly emotive case is receiving coverage by the Greek media. The schoolboy's death ignited the country's worst civil unrest in three decades and caused a resurgence of far-left and anarchist attacks.

There was renewed rioting on the anniversary of the shooting last month which led to more than 130 arrests.

Karkoneas told the tense and hushed courtroom: "I don't accept liability for anybody's death. I would have stepped forward to shield anyone, including these kids."

His lawyer, Alexis Kouyias, said the incident was a "tragic accident" which occurred as police fired warning shots "in a state of panic" to keep back youths who were lobbing stones and bottles at them.

Saraliotis insisted he was also innocent and "will prove it". He told the court: "I have nothing to do with my colleague's actions."

A post-mortem examination indicated that Alexis was hit by a bullet that ricocheted. But the prosecution – citing the testimony of witnesses – will argue that Korkoneas aimed directly at the boy, whose heart was pierced by a bullet.

Ms Tsalikian, 51, defended her son yesterday as "a quiet child who trusted the police". Glaring directly at the two officers in the dock, she accused them of "murder" and of being "monsters in the guise of men".

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The trial was moved from the Greek capital to the small, remote town of Amfissa 120 miles away to head off the possibility of unrest by anarchists and because of death threats against the defendants by a far-left extremist group.

More than 400 police officers have been sent to protect Amfissa: some 200 anarchists marched through the town's centre chanting anti-police slogans on Wednesday, when the trial was originally due to begin.

Shopkeepers and banks in the town of just 12,000 inhabitants boarded their fronts for fear of violence.

Alexis's death dismayed Greeks across the political spectrum at the time, and unleashed a flood of pent-up anger at political scandals, rising unemployment and poverty.

Critics branded their country a "police democracy".

The shooting tapped historical suspicion of the police dating back a generation when the cradle of European democracy was ruled by a hated military dictatorship between 1967 and 1974.

After the shooting, Greece's Police Officers' Association apologised to the dead boy's family while the then prime minister, Costas Karamanlis, sent a letter of sympathy to his parents, expressing his condolences at the "unfair loss" of their son.

The trial will continue in a week's time.

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