For nine whole years the parents of 11-year-old Marios S. had been waiting for Justice for their child that was killed by a stray bullet in 2017 during a school event.
On Friday, June 19, 2026, a first instance court in Athens unanimously imposed a life sentence on the main defendant for the death of Marios. The court did not recognize any mitigating circumstances, following the prosecutor’s proposal.
The boy was fatally shot during celebrations ending the school year at the elementary school in Menidi municipality in northwest Athens short after 9 o’ clock Thursday evening, June 9, 2017.
Children with their families and teachers were standing in the school courtyard, when the stray bullet hit the boy in the head. He collapsed bleeding, panic broke out as many initially thought that he had fainted. He was rushed to a children’s hospital where he died despite doctors’ efforts to keep the child alive.
The bullet was fired from a distance of 2 to 3 km away, where a group of Roma was holding their own celebrations and fired in the area.
Upon hearing the verdict, the victim’s mother burst into tears saying “My little Marios, my child!”
The convicted man also burst into tears.
Another defendant was acquitted by the court.
Marios’ former classmates raised a banner calling for “Justice Now”
“The act is of particularly great disrespect both to the victim and to society as a whole, I believe that the only sentence that is appropriate in this case is life imprisonment,” the prosecutor said, with the audience bursting into applause and him protesting strongly, saying: “I already said that this is not a reason for joy.”
“We are innocent,” the convicted shouted, “I didn’t do it, we got life sentences for nothing… Life sentences for what? Did I do anything?” repeated the defendant who was found guilty by the court, while his wife shouted that her husband was innocent. “My husband is innocent, please,” she told the judges.
Worth noting that the district attorney criticized the tactics of many witnesses who testified in court and, as he said, were afraid to point to the specific Roma family as the ones responsible for the shooting.
At the same time, furious relatives of the convicted Roma man reportedly attacked journalists and television cameras as they left the court in downtown Athens, they knocked down the cameras of two television crews and the intervention of the police forces was deemed necessary.
The curtain fell on the unprecedented case of a school child being killed in the school courtyard had shocked the entire country.
That the Justice system needed nine whole years to issue a fist-instance decision is another shock.
According to ANT1 TV, the delay was because authorities needed six years to identify the perpetrator and another three years for the justice system to deal with the trial.
