The perpetrators of the brutal attack against the stationmaster at Omonia Metro have been identified, as stated by the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Costas Karamanlis and their arrest will be a matter of time.
As Karamanlis stated on Wednesday morning, the perpetrators have been identified by the Police, as their faces were recorded by Omonia Metro's security cameras.
Καρέ–καρέ η επίθεση νεαρών αρνητών μάσκας σε σταθμάρχη που τους ζήτησε να βάλουν μάσκα pic.twitter.com/xHQD4IOtbJ
— Timeline (@Timelinegr_) January 13, 2021
"The material has been handed over to the Police and, as I have been informed, the faces of the perpetrators are clearly visible and they will soon be arrested and brought to justice," he said.
"There was a police presence in the Metro, but they did not manage to catch the perpetrators," he added.
It is recalled that two young masked men insulted the stationmaster who observed them inside the train on the Anthoupoli-Omonia-Elliniko route and then followed him when he got off at the station and beat him with great cruelty, sending him to the hospital.
At least 20 police officers have launched a manhunt to immediately locate the two young men.
The Athens Prosecutor's Office ordered a preliminary investigation into the case .
The lead investigators say they are optimistic about the identities of the perpetrators, as they say their uniforms, and the fact that they were not wearing masks, make them easily identifiable visually in the CCTV material that has recorded their movements.
Police have started the collection of visual material from all the Metro stations of the route up to Omonia, but also outside the stations in a long radius, in order to locate them and to verify the routes they took before and after the beating.
At the same time, and based on the testimonies at their disposal, both from the victim and from the passengers of the train, police authorities have collected fingerprints from the places where the two young men were in the carriage.
This will also be used for their identification.
The victim of the attack described the shocking moments, saying "I boarded at Anthoupolis. Two young men without masks boarded at Agios Antonios."
"They sat on the seats and put their feet on the seats. I said to one 'lad, you sit at home without a mask and put your feet on the seat?.' He then replied: 'This is how I sit in my house'.
"I also told him 'nice house.' The eldest stood up and said to me, 'What did you say to my brother?' They both stood up, I got up too because I was scared because he had a bag and I was afraid he might have a knife, something else.
"I did not get off at the next metro station, and I said I will go off at Omonia because there is always people there.
"I got off at Omonia and at the time when the train was about to leave they also came out, holding two cans of soft drinks.
"The first threw one at me, and while I was going to avoid the second can, one came from behind, punched me on my head and jaw, threw me down and then beat me and kicked me.
"I remember shouting 'enough' and thinking I would be disabled.
"They were cursing. At that moment, my priority was to protect myself as much as I could and see where it would end.
"As I was falling, they hit my head on the right side, my jaw, my nose and kicked me in the back."
It is noted that the 53-year-old suffered fractures during the vicious beating at the metro station.
"They examined me: two fractures on the nose, a fracture on the lower jaw on the right and three cracked vertebrae and bruises, and everything else on the face... At the moment I cannot speak."
