Five persons, charged in connection with an air crash in August 2005, denied charges of causing the death of passengers and crew on board an Helios aircraft, as their trial opened here Thursday before the Assize Court.
The five suspects are Helios Airways as a legal person and four officials, Andreas Drakos Helios Executive Chairman, Demetris Pantazis Managing Director, George Kikkides Flight Operations Director and Ianco Stoimenov Chief Pilot.
Each one of them faces 238 charges. During today’s procedure, held in the presence of Drakos, Pantazis, Kikkidis and Stoimenov, the prosecution read out two of the charges against each of them, relating to causing the death of 119 passengers on the Helios flight due to negligence to prevent the flying of the aircraft by “inadequate or inappropriate” head crew (captain and co-captain), which resulted in the flight being unsafe.
Defence Lawyer George Papaioannou asked for a period of 2.5 months to give him time to prepare the defence case of his clients and present as much acceptable and realistic evidence, given that the Greek authorities are expected to give certain evidence to the Cypriot authorities.
There are 372 witnesses expected to be called to the dock during the legal proceedings.
On behalf of the prosecution, Senior Counsel of the Republic Elena Zachariadou gave her consent for the period requested by the defence, noting that she would prefer that any evidence to be handed over by the Greek authorities is communicated to Cyprus before the hearings begin.
The three-member Assize Court set the next hearing for November 27, stressing that it expects lawyers to make the necessary arrangements in the meantime so that the trial will continue on a daily basis.
Many relatives of the victims of the air tragedy were present at the court, but only approximately 15 of them were allowed to enter the court room.
Some of the relatives complained about this, while they expressed doubt as to whether justice will be administered and those responsible for the accident will be punished.
The Helios aircraft, heading for Prague via Athens, crashed into the mountainside of Grammatiko, north of the Greek capital, killing all 121 passengers on boad.
