"My pain has been unimaginable": Four years since Joanna Paliospirou was attacked with vitriol acid

Life always wins, she told her followers via Instagram

Joanna Paliospirou was attacked on May 20, 2020, with vitriol at the entrance of the apartment building where she worked. Over four years later, and her life has changed radically.

"4 years ago. How different my life should be. How much pain have I experienced? Unimaginable. How many battles have I fought? Countless. It doesn't matter that everything is different. My heart is filled with selfless love. My life is full of good people.

"Use today as an opportunity to claim your own victory. Visualise it and work hard. Never give up. Fight until your last breath. In the end, you will be full of pride for yourself.

"Trust my words! Life always wins!" wrote Joanna Paliospirou.

See her post:

Efi Kakarantzoula was sentenced to 15 years in prison in October 2021 for the attempted murder of Joanna Paliospirou with vitriol acid in the Athens suburb of Kallithea in May 2020.

At the time, prosecutor Charalambos Mastrantonakis said the attacker executed her criminal plan “in a calculated manner. She had vile motives, murderous egoism and moral pettiness.”

He stressed that the type of acid that Kakarantzoula used and the way she executed her crime “leaves no doubt about her murderous intent.”

“The defendant did not want to ruin the face of Joanna [the victim], she ruined her life,” Mastrantonakis continued. “When she threw the acid in her face, she accepted that it could be inhaled, swallowed, find its way to her trachea, and kill her. It was revenge that accepted the risk of death.”

Kakarantzoula claimed during the trial that she had no intent of killing Paliospirou, explaining that she stalked Paliospirou after suspecting her of dating a man with whom she had embarked on a sexual relationship in 2018.

She admitted to going to significant lengths to procure vitriol to the survivor’s place of work in an office building, saying she paid a man she met outside a shop in downtown Athens to get it for her.

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