A Mixed Jury Appeals Court on Friday returned a unanimous guilty verdict for both defendants on trial for the murder and rape of student Eleni Toupaloudi on the island of Rhodes.
The court fully upheld the verdict of the lower court and found the two men, aged 24 and 22, respectively, guilty of both homicide and rape.
The victim's father, Yiannis Topaloudis, burst into tears when the verdict was read out, while her mother was not in the courtroom.
The proceedings will now continue with the presentation by the defendants' lawyers of possible mitigating circumstances, in the hopes of reducing the sentences of life and 15 years imprisonment initially imposed on their clients.
Main opposition SYRIZA and MeRA25 party MPs were present in the court to support the family of Eleni Topaloudi, who was 21 at the time when she was killed.
Court rejects all mitigating circumstances for murderers of Eleni Topaloudi
The judges and jury of the Mixed Jury Appeals Court on Friday unaminously refused to admit any mitigating circumstances in the case of the two men found guilty of the murder and rape of 21-year-old student Eleni Topaloudi, accepting the arguments of the prosecution.
The defence had requested that the court recognise their lack of a previous criminal record, subsequent good behaviour, their youth (they are aged 24 and 22, respectively), sincere contrition after the act and an overrun in the reasonable duration of the trial, as well as asking for the implementation of the 113 Penal Code for young adult perpetrators.
The prosecutor argued that while their age would qualify them for the mitigating circumstance of post-pubescence, their actions did not indicate youthful immaturity "but a conscious choice within the framework of a criminal plan" and that there was no evidence that their contrition was genuine and not feigned in order to qualify for the leniency of the court.
Source: ANA-MPA
