Prosecutor recommends guilty verdict for acid attack suspect
A prosecutor in Athens on Thursday asked a court to return a guilty verdict against a 37-year-old woman who has admitted to throwing acid into the face of another woman in the Athens suburb of Kallithea in May 2020 on one count of attempted murder, in a calm mental state.
Efi Kakarantzoula claimed during the trial that she began stalking the victim, Ioanna Paliospyrou, now 35, after suspecting her of dating a man with whom Kakarantzoula had embarked on a sexual relationship in 2018.
Despite Paliospyrou’s assurances that she was not involved with the man, the defendant told the court she was “consumed by envy” and had stalked her victim for months leading up to the attack outside Paliospyrou’s workplace in Kallithea.
Her lawyer had asked the court to reduce the charges against his client from attempted murder to committing grievous bodily harm, arguing the lack of intent.
“The allegation of grievous bodily harm is to be rejected. It is concluded that she definitely considered the death of the victim possible and approved it,” prosecutor Charalambos Mastrantonakis told the judges on Thursday.
“She developed feelings of hatred for the victim, believing that she had deceived her…After that, she began devising a plan to exterminate her with vitriol.”
The prosecutor also said that the defendant “was given the opportunity to present her case to the investigative magistrate, to present her case before us, for an act she has committed and confessed to. But she never gave Ioanna such an opportunity. She condemned her to bear her own cross every day.”
