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Acid attack victim faces assailant in courtroom

Acid attack victim faces assailant in courtroom

The victim of a May 2020 acid attack faced her assailant for the first time in court Thursday but came away with no answers as to why she was targeted.

“The biggest thing I have felt since that day is fear. Fear because I don’t know the reason for the attack,” Ioanna Paliospyrou, 35, told the Athens court.

Paliospyrou has been left physically and mentally impaired and has had nine surgeries and months of treatment after being doused with sulfuric acid outside her office in the Athens suburb of Kallithea by Efi Kakarantzoula, 36, who has confessed to the crime. 

Kakarantzoula was “cold and determined” when she threw the acid, Paliospyrou told the court. “I felt it all over me… The pain was unbearable,” she said.

Kakarantzoula said she didn’t want to kill her, but neither did she offer a reason for the attack. “Ioanna, you know why it happened,” she told Paliospyrou in court Thursday.

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