Five face rap for fan murder
The prosecutor in the trial of those accused of murdering Panathinaikos fan Michalis Filopoulos, who was beaten and stabbed to death during a mass brawl among hooligans just outside Athens in March 2007, yesterday recommended that five people be convicted of killing the 25-year-old. Prosecutor Epaminondas Vrakatselis said that three of the five should be found guilty of being accomplices in Filopoulos’s murder and the other two should be convicted of actually killing him. He also proposed that 19 of the 27 people implicated in the case should be found guilty of taking part in the brawl, which saw dozens of Panathinaikos fans clash with rival Olympiakos supporters before a volleyball game. The court heard that the clash in Paeania had been pre-arranged. Vrakatselis said he had not been convinced by the explanations of the five suspected murderers, who have denied killing Filopoulos. Defense lawyers are due to sum up on Friday.
