Ten suspects linked to police killings
Ten out of the 12 people who have been detained in connection to the fatal shooting of two members of the motorcycle-riding DIAS squad in Rendi, southwestern Athens, in March are to face an investigating magistrate on Tuesday, police said on Monday as sources revealed that the suspects? cell phone conversations helped investigators trace the alleged perpetrators.
Of the 10 suspects currently in police detention, three are to face murder charges. It was unclear what charges will be brought against the other seven, who are believed to be members of the same criminal ring as the three prime suspects.
Two of the original 12 suspects who had been detained on drug-related charges have been released. All three prime suspects and most of the others are ethnic Greeks from the former Soviet Union, police said.
The case file contains the testimony of one of the DIAS officers who survived the shooting in Rendi on March 1 claiming to have positively identified one of the suspects as the shooter.
An excerpt of the officer?s deposition reads: ?I am sure it was him that shot at us. The moment I saw him, my adrenaline shot up, I was almost in shock. I will never forget his face and I will never forget his movements just before he started shooting.?
Police sources told Kathimerini that it was the anonymous information sent to Athens?s security police the day after the fatal shooting of Giorgos Skyloyiannis, 22, and Yiannis Evangelinelis, 23, and the suspects? cell phone conversations, which were wiretapped by police, that led to the 12 arrests.
The suspects had frequent phone conversations with each other and with their relatives before and after the shooting, according to police. ?Their physical presence [at the scene of the crime] is proven by the mobile telephone masts that were activated during their conversations,? an extract of the case file reads.
