From today's Cyprus Mail Internet edition:
Helios criminal case opened in Greece
AN ATHENS public prosecutor yesterday launched criminal proceedings into the Helios air crash of August 14, 2005.
The proceedings concern “voluntary manslaughter with probable malice against all involved parties,” or gross negligence leading to death.
It paves the way for Greek police investigators to begin questioning people both here and in Greece.
The crash victims’ relatives welcomed the news. Speaking on CyBC television last night, the relatives’ spokesman Nicolas Yiasoumis said: “This finally gives the green light… so that the guilty - who murdered 121 people in the air - may be brought to justice.”
Lawyer Efstathios Efstathiou was also optimistic that convictions would be possible in Greece.
He said the Greek justice system was more “flexible” in cases of gross negligence.
He was alluding to recent comments by Attorney-general Petros Klerides that prosecuting anyone in Cyprus would be “very difficult.”
Klerides’ remarks had infuriated the relatives and their lawyers, who have been waiting for 14 months for the cogs of justice to turn.
According to Efstathiou, in Greece it is even possible for civil suit lawyers to attend criminal trial hearings.
The victims’ relatives are suing plane manufacturers Boeing in the United States for a string of build and design omissions, which they say contributed to the crash.
The fact-finding report into the accident named pilot error as the primary cause, merely citing the airline’s operating deficiencies under the “latent causes.”
A police investigation is also underway on the island. Despite conflicting reports, the latest interpretation is that the Attorney-general will use this together with the findings of an independent commission of inquiry to decide whether to prosecute.
The broad mandate of the commission, headed by ex Supreme Court judge Panayiotis Kallis, is to “recommend” who is responsible for the accident. However, it was only after the publication of the Tsolakis accident report earlier this month that it emerged the commission’s findings were not binding on authorities.
Even more confusingly, this week Kallis said his commission would base its conclusions exclusively on the Tsolakis report - which raises the question of why the commission should function at all.
Moreover, Kallis’ assertion does not appear to be consistent with the train of events: if the commission was to be based solely on the report, then why did it start convening before the report was out?
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