A new suspected femicide has shocked Greece on Thursday after the stabbing of a woman in Menidi, east of Athens.
The initial investigation indicates that the victim was killed by her former husband, according to police sources.
Her body was found in the middle of the street, at the junction of Parnithos and Aristotelous streets.
The 40-year-old victim had filed three complaints of domestic violence against her former husband and authorities are looking or him, the same sources said. The first complaint was made in April 2013, the second in September 2022 and the third on May 7 this year, at the police station of Peristeri.
Following her last complaint, her ex-husband was arrested and charged with domestic abuse. He was due in court this Friday.
According to the same sources, the victim had also installed the panic button application for women at risk of domestic abuse.
Reports indicated that there was a witness who claimed to have seen the woman being stabbed, while a local shop owner said that when she arrived at her store this morning she was told that a woman had been heard shouting for help.
In early April a woman was murdered outside a police precinct where she had just requested protection from an ex-boyfriend.
The 28-year-old Kyriaki Griva was fatally stabbed shortly after she had gone to her local police station in Agioi Anargyroi in northern Athens to seek police protection against her ex-boyfriend.
Sixth femicide in Greece this year
The April stabbing was the sixth femicide reported in Greece this year. In 2023, fifteen such incidents were reported. The high-profile case of Caroline Crouch in 2021 brought the issue of femicide to national attention.
The 28-year-old’s death triggered new calls by left-wing opposition parties for femicide, the killing of women or girls with a gender-related motivation, to be recognized as a distinct term in Greece’s criminal code.
“It must be examined to what extent these (protocols) were followed,” Chrysochoidis said. He added that while he supported the criminal code reform requested by opposition parties, that should follow a “serious and calm debate” by legal experts.
Greece introduced in 2022, the panic button, a digital application that will instantly help you reach out for help if you find yourself in a difficult situation.
The panic button sends a short text message to the police in instances in which family violence is associated with a threat or danger to life and physical integrity. The purpose is immediate intervention by the police force.
Automatically, the phone through the special application is connected to the center of the service which will receive the calls (whether it is the police or some other special service), and it detects where you are through the GPS of your cell phone.