More bodies of executed civil war-era prisoners uncovered under Greek city park
Another series of unmarked graves — this one containing 14 individuals from Greece's civil war era — have been dug up in a park in a suburb near the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, local officials said Saturday.
As in the previous tight cluster of unmarked burial pits excavated earlier this year in Neapolis-Sykies, the bodies belong to prisoners who were held in a nearby Byzantine fortress. The prisoners, alleged communists and sympathizers, were executed between 1946 and 1953, according to historians.
The Yedi Kule castle, also known by its Greek name Eptapyrgio ('seven towers') was a prison where communist sympathizers were tortured and executed during Greece's 1946-49 Civil War and immediately afterward.
The burial pits were uncovered on the site of a municipal park undergoing renovation, including the installation of new benches. The graves were not far beneath the surface, Haris Charismiadis, the supervising engineer of the park project, told The Associated Press.
The renovation project is not currently a priority for local mayor Simos Daniilidis. 'We insisted on continuing the digging for the graves,' he said. Charismiadis, who said most of the current batch of bodies were found during the past week, is certain there are more people buried nearby, including, probably, under the tarmac of streets adjacent to the park. An archaeologist is assisting in the digging.
In contrast with the 33 bodies found earlier this year, which were lying side by side, the recently found bodies are jumbled, as if thrown randomly, and hastily, in a heap. Torsos and heads are separated.
When Yedi Kule prisoners were executed, their families were often not notified and they didn't get to retrieve their bodies. Some found out about the fate of their loved ones from newspapers — one family happened upon the news while on the bus they had taken to the prison to bring their relative a fresh change of clothes.
Relatives of the executed have clamored for DNA tests to be done to ascertain the identity of the found bodies. Testing has not begun yet.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
14 hours ago
- Telegraph
Millions of taxpayers' money has been spent on prisoner laptops
Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been spent on providing prisoners with laptops. A Freedom of Information Request submitted by the campaign group Senedd Waste revealed that the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) had spent £6.28 million on laptops for prisoners in England and Wales over the past three years. The framing of the response from the ministry suggests that the primary objective of this scheme is to provide prisoners with access to 'Launchpad', which is an 'in-cell tech programme that gives prisoners secure laptops with digital services in their cells to support their rehabilitation'. The programme has been rolled out in 19 prisons, reaching around 12,900 inmates. But the MOJ's description of Launchpad continues, going considerably further beyond what the average law-abiding Joe would reasonably consider necessary to rehabilitate a convicted criminal into society. We are told that the programme is designed to offer 'distraction to empower prisoners on the inside, to live better lives on the outside'. Is the purpose of prison to distract convicted criminals while they serve their sentences? I would call this a hopeless infantalisation of our criminal justice system but the reality is more absurd. Even children on the naughty step are invited to reflect on their behaviour as they serve out their period of exclusion. The programme is designed to improve inmates' 'peace of mind knowing their laptop can only be used by them', because 'prisoners report they like 'something just for them''. The MOJ further notes that 'prisoners engaging with fresh, relevant, useful and relaxing content 24/7 [emphasis added] report improved mood, reduced self-harm and lower frustration levels'. In their response to Senedd Waste's Freedom of Information request, the MOJ confirmed that the laptops, which provide prisoners with 'tools and technology to help maintain relationships, support health and wellbeing', are issued to be used 'without supervision'. Which raises the very logical question, also put to the ministry by the campaign group, what safeguards are in place to ensure the laptops are not used for nefarious purposes. This query was declined on security grounds, so we are left to arrive at our own conclusion. A spokesman for the DOJ however confirmed to me that 'all in-cell technology is fitted out with tough security measures and cannot be used to browse the internet.' But tech security is a tricky business. Adding convicted criminals to the mix demonstrates a sort of unfounded self-confidence which only the taxpayer-funded public sector can afford to entertain. Such as that shown by Humza Yousaf in 2020 as Scotland's Justice Secretary, when £7.6 million was spent on providing inmates – including 'murderers, paedophiles and gangland thugs' – with personal mobile phones to keep in touch with their families during the pandemic, 'to aid the mental health and wellbeing of those in our care and their loved ones.' The scheme had to be abandoned after the phones were found to be used to commit 'more than 8,000 security breaches, including drug deals, hit jobs and the fire-bombing of family homes' as, rather predictably, illicit SIM cards could be easily used to bypass restrictions. As we reported last year, the mobile phones were then replaced with landlines, taking the total cost of the scheme to £12 million. For taxpayers' sake let us hope that the MOJ has more robust security precautions in place. But is there a framework in place for the ministry to record and assess the success of the programme? At the time of writing this, four days have passed since I posed this question to Shabana Mahmood's department. I have yet to receive an answer. Hardly a day goes by without our criminal justice system hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons. From releasing dangerous criminals early to providing child-killing terrorists with access to sweet treats in prison, the news reports paint a picture of a system which is completely out of sync with the nation, chipping away at the public's confidence in it. This story is a depressing reminder of just how great the chasm remains between those who run prison services and those who pay for them.
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
More bodies of executed civil war-era prisoners uncovered under Greek city park
Another series of unmarked graves — this one containing 14 individuals from Greece's civil war era — have been dug up in a park in a suburb near the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, local officials said Saturday. As in the previous tight cluster of unmarked burial pits excavated earlier this year in Neapolis-Sykies, the bodies belong to prisoners who were held in a nearby Byzantine fortress. The prisoners, alleged communists and sympathizers, were executed between 1946 and 1953, according to historians. The Yedi Kule castle, also known by its Greek name Eptapyrgio ('seven towers') was a prison where communist sympathizers were tortured and executed during Greece's 1946-49 Civil War and immediately afterward. The burial pits were uncovered on the site of a municipal park undergoing renovation, including the installation of new benches. The graves were not far beneath the surface, Haris Charismiadis, the supervising engineer of the park project, told The Associated Press. The renovation project is not currently a priority for local mayor Simos Daniilidis. 'We insisted on continuing the digging for the graves,' he said. Charismiadis, who said most of the current batch of bodies were found during the past week, is certain there are more people buried nearby, including, probably, under the tarmac of streets adjacent to the park. An archaeologist is assisting in the digging. In contrast with the 33 bodies found earlier this year, which were lying side by side, the recently found bodies are jumbled, as if thrown randomly, and hastily, in a heap. Torsos and heads are separated. When Yedi Kule prisoners were executed, their families were often not notified and they didn't get to retrieve their bodies. Some found out about the fate of their loved ones from newspapers — one family happened upon the news while on the bus they had taken to the prison to bring their relative a fresh change of clothes. Relatives of the executed have clamored for DNA tests to be done to ascertain the identity of the found bodies. Testing has not begun yet.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Daily Mail
Greek tourist 'was stabbed to death on his doorstep for his man bag after attackers followed him home from West End nightclub'
A Greek tourist who was stabbed on the way home from a West End nightclub was killed for his man bag, a court has heard. Antonios Antoniadis, 26, was attacked as he got out of an Uber following a night out at 32 Portland Place in Marylebone, London last July. A group of five killers had been sitting in a stolen Kia Sportage looking for a victim to rob when they saw the holidaymaker walk past, jurors at the Old Bailey heard. Joshua McCorquodale, 20, Shian Johnson, 25, Sofian Alliche, 20, Alfie Hipple, 18, and an unnamed 17-year-old then allegedly followed him all the way to his friend's house in New Cross, southeast London, before four attempted to take the item while one sat in the car. Mr Antoniadis then struck one of them with a brandy bottle, before he was stabbed and left on the ground as the group sped off in the vehicle, which had been seen outside the club for several hours ahead of the attack, the court heard. The visitor survived for two weeks in hospital before dying of his injuries on July 21, 2024. All five accused deny murder and conspiracy to rob. Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones said: 'Mr Antoniadis was here in London on holiday, a tourist who had come on holiday from his home in Greece. 'He had come with a couple of his friends, Maria and Tia, they were spending the week seeing the city, staying with a friend, having some fun. 'That night, they ended up in a nightclub in the West End called 32 Portland Place, not far from Oxford Circus. It was it seemed quite a night out - they didn't even get to the club until just after 4am and they didn't leave the club until about 8.15am. 'As they travelled out of central London, they had no idea that they were being followed. They had no idea that five young men had been hanging around outside that nightclub all night in a stolen car looking for someone they could rob. 'They followed him for over half an hour, all the way to Florence Terrace, New Cross. 'As Maria struggled to find the key to open the door, Antonis was approached by four figures in hoods and balaclavas, four of them, because one of the five, the driver, had stayed in the car to turn it around and prepare for their getaway. 'Antonis resisted, and struggled, and at one point managed to hit one of his attackers with a brandy bottle he was still holding from his night out. 'At least two of the attacking group had with them large knives. One of them shouted "ching him", in other words, stab him. 'Antonis was by now on the ground, one his hands and knees, surrounded by the four robbers who were punching and kicking him, and then they stabbed him. 'He suffered cuts and bruises to his face and head, wounds to his arms as he tried to defend himself, and he was stabbed in the middle of the chest he suffered a large and deep stab wound to his right thigh which completely severed his femoral artery and caused catastrophic blood loss. 'His four attackers then ran back to the waiting car, they jumped in and their driver sped them away, leaving their victim bleeding to death behind them.' He added that the prosecution's case described them as equally responsible for the murder. 'They were clearly prepared to use violence to try and pull off the robbery, and given that they had at least two large knives between them, they were clearly prepared to use really serious violence if the need arose,' Mr Jones said. 'The need did arise, at least as far as they were concerned, and so they used their knives, they stabbed Antonis, and they killed him.' The trial continues and is set to last six weeks.
