According to Sigmalive, “On January 6, 2025, members of the Anti-Poaching Unit of the MAD attempted to intercept around 8.00 p.m. 3 vehicles in the Potamia Area, a rental saloon car with E/C plates, a saloon car with T/C plates and a black double cab with no plates.
According to the reports, the double cab escaped to the buffer zone, the T/C picked up speed and the policeman tried to shoot the tyres unsuccessfully, resulting in the double cab also escaping to the buffer zone. The third vehicle, with E/C plates attempted to move towards the officers and struck the service vehicle. A second officer also unsuccessfully used a pistol, resulting in this vehicle also moving into the buffer zone.
According to the Alpha TV correspondent, around 8.40 pm a large police force was combing the area and citizens had asked whether they had seen anyone running towards the community.
On the same day, about an hour after the events in Potamia, a former asylum seeker from Pakistan was found dead by a citizen in a parking lot on Kalypso street in Acropolis. According to reports, the man was naked from the waist up, had no blood on his body and had several documents next to him, including his own, his watch and the sum of 500 euros.
On 10.01.2025, the police announced after the necropsy that this man was finally killed by a bullet of a police officer’s service weapon during the chase that took place in Potamia village on 06.01.2025. It may be noted that the police on 06.01.2025, after the conclusion of the Medical Examiner, ruled out the possibility that the death was caused by a criminal act. In fact, a small hole in his body which was caused by a bullet was considered on 06.01.2025 to have been caused by an injury from a small stone during his fall.
Following the above developments, the Attorney General, as a prosecuting authority and at the same time legal advisor to the State, decided “to appoint the Senior Attorney of the Republic, Mr. Ninos Kekkos, as an independent Criminal Investigator, to head the investigations conducted by the Police”.
Following questions raised by reports that the deceased had been shot in the right side of his back, which ended up near the spine, the police claimed, according to reports, that the third vehicle, a rental vehicle with E/C plates, moved backwards towards them in a threatening manner and possibly the migrant was locked in the hood when he was accidentally hit by the police bullet.
KISA believes that the government and the prosecuting authorities must answer the serious questions raised by this new police fiasco with transparency:
- The reasons why both the police officers involved and the coroner neglected or consciously avoided to establish that the death of the migrant was caused by a gunshot despite the serious indications and evidence available to them from the beginning.
- The facts warrant beyond reasonable doubt that the police officers used their service weapon for protection purposes at a time when the police statement originally referred to shooting at the tires for the purpose of immobilizing the fleeing vehicles.
- Confirmation of the police officers’ claims that they fired at the vehicle when it was threateningly moving backwards towards them at the time it was originally said to be attempting to flee at high speed and collided with one of the service vehicles.
- Confirmation of the officers’ claims that they fired at the vehicle when it threateningly darted backwards towards them at the time it was initially said to have tried to flee at high speed and crashed into one of the service vehicles.
- Investigating the allegations that the migrant who was fatally shot was on the bonnet of the car when logic and practice tells us that smugglers hide in the bonnet the people, they want to smuggle into government-controlled areas and not themselves.
- The statements of Potamia residents that members of the police force who went to the scene after the incident were asking residents if they had noticed “a person had fled on foot into the community”, possibly implying that the shots were fired at a pedestrian trying to escape.
- How is it possible that a senior prosecutor of the Republic is appointed as an “independent criminal investigator” and that investigations into a case with such serious questions about the role of the police officers involved are conducted by the police themselves and not, for example, by the AADIPA?
KISA Steering Committee
