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This is our weekly round-up from Greece.
 

The Greek society was shocked and appalled this week when it was revealed that a younger than 12-year-old child had been repeatedly raped and was forced into prostitution by a man who was her… employer and an associate. 

 

The alleged criminal was keen to create a social profile of adhering to the "homeland-religion-family" doctrine. He and his wife were politically connected with the ruling ND and appear to have connections within the police.

 

In this great drama, the mainstream Greek media proved they more than deserve 108th place in the RSF Press Freedom Index. They abused the child again as they sent cameras to be stationed outside her house day and night, plus they showed her picture (blurred) on TV.   

 

 

Greece's societal and political decay became more challenging to hide in this era - The chronicle of the case

 

Following the child rape and pedophilia scandal with ex-National Theatre Director Dimitris Lignadis (who, despite being convicted of child rape at first degree, he is free somewhere out there, pending appeal), a new child rape and prostitution case broke out this week.

 

A 53-year-old man called Ilias Michos is reportedly accused of having raped a 12-year-old girl repeatedly and also of forcing her into prostitution, with him earning some 50-70 euros from each child rapist. 

 

The man is believed to have been recording his assaults against the girl and uploaded the videos to the internet via a fake profile he had created, using it to attract clients to pay him to have sex with the girl.

 

Media have reported that 213 people expressed interest in raping the child via the fake profile - and the police are trying to identify them. The perpetrator offered "sex services" using the 12-year-old victim, reportedly claiming she was 16 years old and an orphan.

 

Note that at the time of the sexual exploitation and abuse from April to August 2022, the victim was not even 12 years old.

 

A 42-year-old man called Sophianidis Ioannis has also been arrested in connection with the case.

 

Greek media have reported that the 53-year-old perpetrator ran a retail business in Athens, where the 12-year-old occasionally worked, and her mother was also employed as a cleaner.

 

The child's uncle reported that the 53-year-old had threatened the child to force him into prostitution. The child herself revealed she had even been threatened with a gun. The victim's uncle added that Michos had threatened the whole family should they go public with this.

 

"Do you want to have food [in the family]? I will be giving you money, things from the shop. Go talk to the gentleman; he won't hurt you and will give you money," he told her. 

 

With the father being unemployed, the media reported that the family was living on child benefits (a negligible amount in Greece) and a 100-euro donation by the grandmother each month.

 

The two defendants face charges, including rape, sexual intercourse with a minor below 15, human trafficking, violence, and pornography against a minor. The 53-year-old Michos also faces charges of weapons possession. Using his right to remain silent, he confessed to having "sexual intercourse" with the 12-year-old victim and remained silent about the other charges.

 

The other defendant also confessed to having had multiple times "sexual intercourse" with the minor, paying a fee.

 

The line of defense for both of them appears repulsive as one claims that he had "sex" with the child's consent and the other that she "provoked him."

 

A tsunami of shocking revelations followed the arrest. 

 

In an unexpected development on Tuesday, the victim's mother was arrested from the family home in Kolonos and three of her eight children in total, Mega TV reported shortly after 5 p.m. It is not known yet why the children were taken by the police. 

 

According to reports, the police found multiple communications between the perpetrator and the mother and regular bank deposits from him to her - considered not justified by the fact that the mother was his employee. She has been accused of pimping. 

 

From the time of his arrest, the alleged perpetrator was implying there was a person from the child's close environment involved, while he claimed the mother knew everything. 

 

The 12-year-old's uncle, however, claimed that these were utter lies to which the defendant's lawyer resorted to saving his client. The mother denies she has been implicated and claims she knew nothing.

 

There is something that doesn't add up here, as the mother was the person who brought the case to the police. We'll be following the developments. 

 

According to reports, all eight children of the family will be examined -as they believe some other child could have similarly been abused- they will testify and visit a psychologist. Afterward, the prosecutor will decide where they will be hosted.  

 

Authorities seem to believe that the two defendants were part of a pedophilia trafficking ring.

 


 


 

Connections with the establishment

 

The 53-year-old alleged perpetrator of this most hideous crime appeared in his social life - and social media as a very religious man. He and his wife were also politically connected with ND. 

 

More specifically, the defendant had created a social profile of a very "giving" and "godly" person. He would often take pictures with clergy and prominent politicians of the ruling ND party, to which he was also a member at Kolonos branch, Western Athens. The man would post these pictures on his Facebook account. Among them is also a picture with the commander of the local police station, a station to which the defendant would donate cleaning items, as he was the owner of a mini market.

 

Government spokesman Yiannis Oikonomou confirmed the defendant has been a member of ND, yet he emphasized that the party has canceled the man's membership.

 

"What has been revealed is horrible and abominable; it goes without saying that his party membership has been suspended; it is not correct to attempt to exploit such cases politically," Oikonomou told journalists on Monday.

 

Moreover, before she was arrested, the child's mother accused the wife of the 53-year-old of trying to bribe her with 10,000 euros in return for her silence. 

 

As mentioned, the mother was the one who went to the police to press charges against the alleged rapist. 

 

"I don't care about the money, nor do I want compensation, nothing. I only want this man to be thrown into jail - to be punished, and that's it," she said in an interview before her arrest.  

 

The defendant's wife was also politically connected with ND. She was working as a counselor at the Athens municipality Public Nursery under ND Athens Mayor Costas Bakoyannis, who expelled her from the municipality party as soon as the mother's revelations came out.

 

In another strange aspect of the case, before her arrest, the mother had gone to Kolonos police department to press charges for the issue and was reportedly sent away: the policemen there instructed her to address her case to the Police Headquarters GADA (something that doesn't make any sense). 

 

At the same time, photos of the older defendant with a Kolonos department high-ranking policeman went viral on social media. 

 

Furthermore, according to information by MEGA TV, the younger defendant had an internal report from the police about the mother's complaint to the police and the investigation that would be conducted against him.

 

Regarding the allegations about "internal information" by police, the main opposition party, SYRIZA, filed a relevant question to Citizen Protection Minister Theodorikakos.

 

In a later development, the 53-year-old's son, Panagiotis Michos, was fired from the newspaper 'To Vima' where he worked as a journalist. Son Michos tried to defend himself by posting that there should not be such a thing as a 'collective family responsibility.' And he would have been right. But the publishing company Alter Ego had a somehow different explanation: 

 

In a press release, they claim they asked him to stay out on the fringes until the case is resolved, 'and that is because he admitted that he knew for weeks now his father's deeds and thus he was part of an effort to silence the barbarity committed against the minor. He did not accept our rational and just proposal, so he left the group."

 



 

Abused also by the media

 

It just happens just as you think Greek mainstream media cannot get any lower. 

 

What would the media usually do in such an abhorrent case of child rape and forced prostitution? 

 

Well, we certainly know what they should definitely NOT do: target the victim. 

 

That is, however, precisely what the Greek media chose to do. Greek TV sent cameras outside the 12-year-old's house. They sent cameras out of the multi-traumatized minor. No one, no journalists association, no prosecutor, no nothing, went after them to stop this (second) abuse. 

 

"She is experiencing, again and again, a nightmare, with all this publicity around the matter and the journalists who are constantly outside her house," the victim's family lawyer stated.

 

They would even zoom in on the dusty windows of a "station wagon," allegedly used by defendant Michos, commenting that the seat "can be dropped down."

 

The minor's family lawyer, Aspasia Tarachopoulou, stated she would file charges against the TV channels "as the child's ID has become known due to journalists' continuous presence outside the family's house."

 

A TV show showed the victim's picture (with the face blurred - but still WTF?) The lawyer stated this is "unacceptable" as "it concerns the child's future" and threatened again with lawsuits. 

 

In another incident, the SKAI TV channel called controversial police unionist Balaskas to discuss the matter. Balaskas then told us that the alleged child rapist "is a perfect guy, prominent, with a full life and an excellent wife, also prominent, and a son, a very good boy."

 

When asked about the defendant's wife's cover-up attempt, in a most appalling statement, Balaskas said:

 

"We cannot accuse her of something. Everybody is being investigated." 

 

Balaskas is famous for a statement indirectly "instructing" those committing femicide how to get away with a lower sentence. He had famously said on live TV regarding Caroline Crouch's cold-blooded murderer, her pilot husband: "He is stupid. Had he confessed from the beginning, he would get just a five-year incarceration sentence."

 

So, it's not that SKAI TV did not know who they had invited. 

 

On Friday morning, again on SKAI TV, another police unionist called Ntoumas said in an interview that the 'defect' of pedophilia has always existed, but "the children are protected mostly by the family. And there is a mother here. Her relation with the case should be more emphasized."

 

Victim blaming and 'laundering' criminals. 

 

We want to close this newsletter by emphasizing an important "detail" about the case, which went relatively unnoticed:

 

This child that suffered all this was occasionally employed by her alleged rapist in his shop. She was younger than 12, and she was working. 

 

Until now, this has 'gone down well with the politicians and the media commenting on the case as they didn't pay attention to this ugly 'detail.'

 

It has gone down well that for this broken state, it's OK for a minor to work, most possibly because there is deliberately very loose state supervision on employers as to if they abide by labor legislation - with the latter, anyway, having been turned to disproportionately advantage employers over employees.  

 

And most certainly, because this state does not care at all about poor children. 

 

Twelve-year-old children, and all children, should not work. They should go to school, play at parks, and be happy. 

 

And this is part of the whole problem. 


 

Read

 

Nikolaidis, two-time Olympic taekwondo silver medallist, dies

 

Systematic Cover-Up by EU Border Police - Revealed: The OLAF report on Frontex

 

Greek spyware inquiry ends in a stalemate: Government and opposition disagree on parliamentary inquiry findings.

 

Greece: At a meeting with RSF, the government commits to ban the use of spyware

 

IMEDD - Survey Across Greece "Do we trust journalism?" The journalists' trust in journalists (full report) The Public's trust in journalism (full report)  

 

Transparency International: Top trading countries doing even less than before to stop foreign bribery - Greece and Lithuania declined in enforcement in 2022, falling to the lowest category of little or no enforcement

 

A significant development in the Evros islet case of 38: According to the reply of the Greek Ministry of Defence to a parliamentary scrutiny question, the islet people were stranded on is not entirely Turkish but divided by the borderline. They now say the group was on the Turkish side of the islet (in Greek) 

 

US Senate drops amendments restricting F-16 sale to Turkey.

 

Greece reborn: reversing the fortunes of a ghostly mountain village

 

Renewables covered all Greek electricity demand on Friday.

 

Three Piraeus metro stations are opening on Monday.



 

Watch

 

Greece clashes with Turkey after latest migrant shipwrecks.




 

That's all for this week, thank you for supporting journalism and democracy.

Stay safe.

AL


 

 

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