SYRIZA leader Kasselakis promises to put an end to 'the justice of impunity'

In a comment on the sentences handed down after the trial on the 2018 fire in Mati, Attica, main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Stefanos Kasselakis on Thursday stressed that "this justice of impunity must change and I promise you that it will change".

"My thoughts these days are with the families of the people in Mati, who waited six whole years for justice and watched those responsible pay and walk off," Kasselakis said in a social media post.

He also emphasised that "these unacceptably low penalties" were not the result of any changes introduced by SYRIZA but due to the fact that "serious criminal offences were dubbed misdemeanours" and on the strength of an article that has existed unchanged since the 1950s.

"It was through this article that those accused in connection with the tragedy in Mati got off lightly, after [Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis] promoted them as soon as he became prime minister. Now see who allows convicts to buy off their sentences and go free," Kasselakis said, citing a claim by the head of the Athens Bar Association that New Democracy had changed the Penal Code to make it possible for those found guilty to pay off prison sentences.