With the decision No. 747/23-5-2024 of the 6th Criminal Department of the Supreme Court, which was cleared a few days ago, the appeals submitted by the 26-year-old Roditis and the 24-year-old co-accused of Albanian origin, ultimately sentenced to life and 15 years in prison by the Mixed Court of Appeal of Athens for the crimes of homicide and gang rape of the young student Eleni Topaloudi, in November 2018 in Rhodes.
No mitigating factors have been identified for the two defendants.
The issuance of the decision, the rationale of which was not accessible to the parties until recently, was revealed by the newspaper “Demokratiki” of Rhodes, on May 25, 2024.
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The rationale for the decision
As accepted by the Sixth Department of the Supreme Court, coming in full agreement with the assumptions and thoughts of the decision of the second-tier criminal court, which it considered fully justified and certain, Eleni Topaloudi, a student of the Department of Mediterranean Studies of the University of the Aegean, met with the foreigner on November 25, 2018, in Rhodes, place of residence of both.
As of November 27, 2018, they have met romantically, at least once. On the evening of November 27, 2018, from approximately 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., Eleni was at her home in the company of a citizen, and on the evening of November 27, 2018, between 9:30 p.m. and 12:00 p.m., she was talking on the phone with her friend.
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Their conversation in question lasted about two hours, which is usual for girlfriends of this age. During this conversation, Eleni was simultaneously communicating with the foreigner by text to arrange for food.
“We’re going to eat”
Indeed, she tells her friend at one point that there was a knock on her door, and that “it’s the kid I told you we were going to eat” (a steakhouse). Around midnight they hang up.
Eleni dresses casually and follows the foreigner to the steakhouse.
On the way, she realizes that in the company will be the citizen, whom, according to the defendants, she only knew by sight.
There the defendants suggested that they go to a steakhouse in Kalathos and not to the nearest one in the city of Rhodes. For this purpose, they would use a van, owned by the father of the native.
On the way, the foreigner was driving the car, Eleni was sitting in the passenger seat and the citizen was back in the cart. But when they arrived in Kalathos, it was past midnight and the steakhouse was closed.
The defendants had stopped the van near the souvlaki, on a flat road next to the Rhodes-Lindou provincial road, and the resident got out and headed for the souvlaki, for the order, from where he returned after a while, idle.
In the meantime, the foreigner was waiting in the driver’s seat, while Eleni was in the passenger seat, busy with her mobile phone, without participating in the defendants’ conversation.
“Something is wrong”
Then the defendants convinced Eleni to follow them to the native’s country house in Pefkos, a few kilometers after Kalathos, for a drink….
Between 00:30 and 01:10 am nothing has happened yet. The three young men are relaxing with a drink (vodka most likely). At 01.07 am Eleni sends a message via messenger to her friend that says: “pick me up in one hour, tel.”.
The meaning of this message is: “I’m not having a good time, I’m not comfortable, something’s wrong, I want to leave. Call to see how I’m doing so I can come back.”
In other words, sending this message indicates that things have started to take a wrong turn.
Eleni realizes that the purpose of the two defendants is nothing more than to force her into something she herself never wanted, never consented to.
Punching and rape
In fact despite her contrary will, the defendants, bending the resistance of the victim with their superior physical strength and exercising physical violence since they were both, for months engaged in amateur training in the gym with Kick Boxing and acting together, proceeded to have intercourse with her successively.
The use of violence is proven by the punches the defendants managed to inflict on her. The above physical injuries and damages were of course done while alive.
Furthermore, even after the above act, the defendants did not stop but continue to force Eleni to tolerate additional lewd and sexual acts.
The sufferer refuses, resists, tries to defend herself and dared to tell them that she will report them to the police.
Then the defendants, realizing the prospect that was unfolding before them (arrest, criminal sanctions, prison), decided together in complete sobriety to exterminate her, “to finish with her”, so that nothing would be learned about the incident.
Strokes with the electric iron
So with the iron that was in the same place as the raised bed where they had immobilized and brutally beat and raped the sufferer, they managed to hit her (iron) repeatedly on her head.
The incident took place on the raised bed, as indicated by the CIE’s on-site chemiluminescence check.
Then the defendants, realizing the whole situation they created, took Eleni to the bathroom which was also filled with blood and when they saw how critical her condition was, they both carried her from the roof to the car and put her wrapped in a sheet on the seat of the passenger.
On the secluded beach wrapped in a sheet and alive
Then the defendants, instead of trying to help the victim, even at the last moment and regretting what happened before, calmly drove the car to the deserted and steep beach of Fokaia around 04:00 in the morning.
They stopped on a plateau high on the edge of the steep cliffs and from there threw Helen into the sea alive, hoping that her body would be swept away by the currents, disappear so that they would not be found and identified as the perpetrators of the crime.
The defendants jointly lifted the body of the still alive Eleni, who was already in a semi-comatose state after the rapids and the swelling, and threw it into the sea. From the lessons of common experience and logic, it follows that the two defendants collaborated to throw Helen’s living body into the sea, despite their claims to the contrary.
Persuasions
Then they returned home, cleaned the blood from the areas of the house that had been filled both when they hit her with the iron and when she was transported, they cleaned the car cabin that was filled with blood, they collected all the items they had used for cleaning, Eleni’s clothes and other personal belongings, the condoms they used, the foreigner’s shoes that got dirty and a man’s underwear and returned in 40-45 minutes to the same place and threw them into the sea from the same place (that is, they had thrown away Eleni).
Unfortunately for them, these did not all end up in the water, but on the skins (in the vegetation) of the rocks and were later detected by the port officers who were conducting the preliminary investigation.
From the photographs, at a sharp point, of the objects found on the shore (on the rocks), it appears that the defendants had their composure and collected all the incriminating evidence for them and Helen’s personal belongings and threw them in a heap on the rocks, so that they would be destroyed and be lost (shoes, tobacco bag, socks, boxer briefs, 2 knives, condoms, the cover and inner lining of the ironing board, the electric iron, Eleni’s clothes, her bag with its contents, her underwear cut in the left side, towel, 2 sponges – cleaning towel).
It should be noted that blood was found on the outside tiles of the bathtub towards the floor, on the inside near the trap door, on the ceiling of the bathroom above the bathtub, on the corner of the wall, to the right of the bathtub at chest height, shower curtain, curtain rod , inside the sink, on the walls of the hallway to the bedroom.
Then they each went home and fell asleep, going about their lives undisturbed. They were arrested by the port guards after seven days.
The unfortunate Eleni was spotted on the morning of November 28, 2018, around 07:30- 08:00, swimming in the water in the center of the small creek by local residents, who notified the police and the coast guard. It should be mentioned that the weather was bad, with high waves, strong wind and rain.
Divers found Eleni’s lifeless body
The recovery of the body was done by two divers and finally her identity was established by the tattoo (black-red rose) she had on the calf of her right leg.
Eleni Topaloudi’s death was caused by drowning since at the time the defendants threw her body into the sea she was still alive and this is indicated by the presence of water in her lungs, which only happens when a person is alive and breathing. Of course, the unfortunate girl must have lived only a few minutes in the water in view of the fact that due to the very serious blow inflicted by the defendants on the back of the left side of her head, behind the ear, she had suffered a very serious cerebral hemorrhage and swelling and as a consequence of this to be unable to react and save himself from drowning.
The decision of the Supreme Court
In its decision, the Supreme Court ruled, among other things:
-A gang rape took place and the sexual intercourse was not done with her consent.
– The citizen’s health problems were insignificant, his reported suicide attempts were not serious, but on the surface and there was a feigned exaggeration of mental disorder symptoms in order to receive “favorable” treatment.
-For the citizen’s claim that he is left-handed, regarding the blow to the deceased with the electric iron and the act of homicide, it was decided that this is not independent, but constitutes his defensive argument. The court of substance was not obliged to rule on this with a special and thorough reasoning.
-The Mixed Jury Court of Appeal of Athens did not fall under the offense of absolute nullity in the proceedings during the proceedings in the audience, for violation of the provisions of orality and publicity of the proceedings in the audience, as well as for lack of hearing.
-It was also judged that the principle of fair trial and the presumption of innocence as well as the right to a fair trial were not violated.
-It was finally decided that the independent claims of both defendants were properly dismissed.
The Topaloudis family was represented by the lawyers Alexis Kougia and Evangelos Giougis and the defendants by Haris Ambrazis and Dimitrios Georgandellis – Lagoumidis.
Source: Dimokratiki.gr
Source: www.zougla.gr
