Fan’s death trial ends, verdict due next week
A judge wrapped up the trial of 27 people who have been charged with various crimes in connection to the death of a Panathinaikos fan, Michalis Filopoulos, during a brawl near Athens in March 2007. The trial lasted several weeks and judge Epameinondas Vrakatselis is expected to issue his ruling on Wednesday. Yesterday, he heard one of the Olympiakos supporters charged with Filopoulos’s death try to distance himself from a mobile phone video that showed him standing over the dead man’s body and shouting obscenities. The fan, Vassilis Psikakos, told the judge that he was swearing at others in order to scare them away as he did not want Filopoulos, who had been beaten and stabbed, to be attacked any further. The explanation led to an angry reaction from Filopoulos’s father, who had to be escorted from the courtroom.
