Notorious Greek gangster is free on parole
Greece is hard at work to mimic foreign "humanitarians," who largely ignore the rights of victims in a triumphant exercise of "judicial correctness" benefiting the criminal offender
Nobody can accuse Greece of having an ironclad system of justice, especially when it comes to violent crime, which is steadily (and frighteningly) increasing in recent years.
The new generation of offenders includes expanding numbers of juvenile perpetrators joining hard-knuckled criminals, who carry on with their “job” often armed with automatic weapons freely available in the underworld market for a bargain basement price.
“Regular” heinous crimes against life and limb (i.e. perpetrated by offenders who usually have no criminal record) are increasing with menacing regularity, femicide, and/or serious bodily harm of women, winning the sweepstakes in this august civilizational broadening competition.
Such august social activities are now coupled with skyrocketing rates of homicide with the use of firearms. Greek justice, however, appears frozen in place, like an animal blinded by the headlights of an oncoming vehicle, while a hideous criminal playground expands rapidly via violent law-breaking activities unknown in this country only a couple of decades ago.
The root of cause of a prevailing, rather “soft,” attitude toward the criminal rests with post-junta Greece investing in rampant “democratization” in an effort to kill her dictatorial past and emerge a virgin of liberal democracy among Europe’s top “modernizers.”
But just like in every other field of endeavor, the Greek, usually feeble-minded, modernizers left nothing untouched by way of an ignorant left-leaning “humanitarian” attitude, imported from a “humanist” Western Europe struggling similarly to secure the “rights” of serious to brutal criminals against the legitimate and inviolable rights of their victims.
The end result of all this commendable, but rather looney, endeavor was, and still is, a gut-wrenching game of giving hardened criminals and killers a “second opportunity” at freedom in the name of a cross-eyed humanitarian form of justice.
The latest episode of merciful parole of an unrepentant gangster is the case of Nikos Paleokostas, a born petty criminal, who quickly graduated to armed gangsterism by robbing banks across Greece. The gang’s 1992 job of emptying the strong box of a National Bank of Greece provincial branch of 125 million of old drachmas, or, roughly, EUR 353,000, established this ‘wild bunch’ as the queen of Greek gangsterism.
Paleokostas, and two accomplices, continued their criminal raids culminating in the abduction of a Salonika industrialist demanding 260 million drachmas (roughly EUR 763,000) for his release. This was the first ever kidnapping in post-WWII Greece, which culminated in the release of the victim after his family paid the ransom.
Paleokostas was finally arrested in 2006, stood trial before criminal court and was sentenced to 197 years, plus 376 months, for kidnapping, armed robbery and other crimes. But, in 2001, a higher court of appeals ordered his release from prison allowing for health reasons and ordered his transfer to his home to continue his incarceration with only two brief furloughs each week. But, to this day, there is no definitive information as to the disposition of the kidnapping ransom money.
Paleokostas, of course, is only one of hardened criminals given a furlough ticket by “understanding” Greek courts. The most eye-popping case of this Greek “balanced justice” is still the scandalous furloughs of terrorist assassin (Dimitris) Koufodinas, of 17 November terror group fame, who has already secured his release from prison in 2027 despite having been convicted to 11 life sentences and 25 years in prison for 11 murders, attempted murder, membership of a criminal organization, as well as the possession and use of weapons and explosives.
In all, Greece still remains a country where even inveterate criminals and vicious killers can exploit the perennial loopholes of a rather morose, and often clueless, judicial system that has never gotten rid of the leftist post-junta frame of mind of equating homicidal criminals with petty offenders.