A GREEK court of appeals yesterday upheld a 10-year prison sentence for three executives found responsible for a 2005 Cypriot airliner crash, which killed all 121 passengers and crew on board, but gave them the option to buy-out their convictions for some €76,000 each.
The Athens court acquitted a fourth defendant, a British engineer who had carried out the final checks on the aircraft before the fatal August 14 flight.
The three, Helios’ managing director Demetris Pantazis, flight operations manager Giorgos Kikkides, and Bulgarian chief pilot Ianko Stoimenov, were found guilty of negligent manslaughter, a misdemeanour.
The court also granted a defence demand for the sentence to be converted into a monetary penalty, something allowed by the Greek justice system for misdemeanours.
The price was set at some €21 per day for 10 years. Relatives appeared satisfied with the conviction, saying that the sentence conversion had been expected.
“The essence is that they have been convicted, they have been found guilty,” said Nicolas Yiasoumi, chairman of the relatives’ association. “Naturally we would have wanted a criminal procedure and higher sentences but this is what we have.”
However, the decision could complicate legal proceedings in Cyprus where the Supreme Court ordered a retrial after the Nicosia Criminal Court acquitted the defendants, which also included Helios Airways as a legal, entity and executive chairman at the time Andreas Drakos.
The British engineer Alan Irwin was not put on trial in Cyprus.
The trial in Greece – the site of the crash -- began in December 2011, shortly after the Cypriot court’s decision to acquit.
Lawyer Yiannakis Ioannou, who represented the relatives in Greece, said yesterday’s decision must be rendered irrevocable to have any gravity in Cyprus.
Legal circles have been citing the issue of double jeopardy, which forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction.
For this to happen, the three executives must appeal the decision with Greece’s Supreme Court, which will have the final say either way.
Or they could opt to drop the case by accepting their sentence.
“I believe the defence lawyers may opt to give up, which will result in making the decision irrevocable,” Ioannou said. “In my view, no court will be able to deal with the case (after that).”
Ioannou however, suggested that Cyprus could still go after the defunct company’s chairman.
That will be the relatives’ demand from now on, if the developments in Greece mean that Cyprus cannot put the three on trial.
“Maybe the fourth one should be tried in Cyprus and that is where the issue lies now,” Yiasoumis said. “Our justice system must assume its responsibilities … so that the procedure goes ahead for the fourth defendant.”
The crash of flight ZU522 was the deadliest aviation disaster in Greece and Cyprus. The Boeing 737-300 slammed into a hillside at Grammatikos, near Athens, killing all 115 passengers and six crew.
In an October 2006 report on the crash, Greek investigators cited human error as the main cause of the crash, saying the pilots had left cabin pressure controls at an incorrect setting.
Passengers and crew were starved of oxygen due to problems in the cabin pressurisation, while the aircraft subsequently crashed into the hill after running out of fuel.
The report also cited Boeing for “ineffectiveness of measures”, since the same alarm was used for two different problems, resulting in the pilots misinterpreting the information.
A 2006 independent inquiry into the crash found that although the pilots were directly responsible for the crash, the airline as well as civil aviation officers were criminally liable.
The full findings of the inquiry, carried out by former judge Panayiotis Kallis, were only made public in December 2011.
The 170-page report had been placed under the care of the Cabinet, the body that appointed the panel, and kept from the public eye since.
The panel was appointed back in 2006 to investigate both the underlying and immediate causes of the crash.
