Four police officers investigated over their actions in the murder of a woman by her former partner outside an Athens police station on April 1, 2024, will stand trial for the felony of fatal exposure by omission, a judicial council ruled on Tuesday.
Almost two and a half years after the killing of 28-year-old Kyriaki Griva, the council is attributing specific omissions to the defendants, who include the police station’s acting supervisor, the duty officer, the guard who witnessed the crime without intervening, and the emergency dispatch operator who dismissed the victim’s pleas for safe transport home.
Griva was stabbed to death by her ex-partner right outside the police station in Agioi Anargyroi, where she had gone to report him for stalking and to request a police escort home.
According to the indictment, the defendants are alleged to “have acted intentionally or by omission, exposed another person and thus rendered her helpless,” though they had “a special legal obligation by law to take action to prevent the outcome and left a person they had under their protection helpless, and their act caused the death of the victim.”
For the acting supervisor, the judges note that she was aware that Griva had reported her ex-partner for stalking and that she feared for her life, requesting police assistance. However, she did not proceed with the required actions nor did she guide the duty officer on the measures that needed to be taken, and simply failed to assess the danger Griva was facing.
