The Minister of Justice, George Florides, spoke about the unprecedented incident of the armed attack of the 89-year-old man inside the premises of the EFKA Kerameikos, as well as at the entrance of the Court of First Instance in Loukareos Street, noting that a proposal of the EL.AS. for vulnerability plans in order to increase measures in court buildings.
As Mr. Florides, speaking on ERT radio, “when a thing has been operating for decades and because the nature of the cases that are conducted there is not such that it can create a tension, so the basic thing is that there are no criminal trials there, you say that since it’s been like this for decades, so there is no issue. But yesterday it turned out that there is an issue.”
“So that leads us back to the vulnerability plans, that’s what the police say. So that means you can see that in this area as well we probably need to increase the measures or take something that we didn’t have,” he continued.
“It is obvious that today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow we will have a picture and a proposal from the Greek Police, because for vulnerability plans the experience belongs to the Greek Police and to see how exactly we can improve this situation,” he continued.
The Minister noted that “the first thing we were concerned about was, did the Secretary General go there immediately to see if we had anything untoward. Fortunately we didn’t have one and we start from there.”
“All of this makes us think. We always look to see if there are any gaps, what they are. Now we’re talking about something and the day before yesterday, with the biggest security rules the President of the United States was in danger. So I want to say, let’s ground ourselves a little bit to see that there is no country in the world that has solved all these issues. We just have to see what conclusions we draw every time we have these events, because that’s how countries move forward. Let’s look at it a little bit more calmly, to see what it is,” Florides said.
Describing what the facts have been so far and what is changing going forward, he said “this is a building that has been like this for decades because there are no criminal trials there. I mean, I mean, there have never been criminal trials there, to have crowding, to have issues.”
In relation to what the vice-president of the Union of Judges and Prosecutors, Mr. Sevastidis, said earlier in the same broadcast that there have been repeated incidents there, Florides said “personally I don’t know them. In the Court of Appeal, which is a large complex, the Supreme Court, especially in the Court of Appeal, where we have serious criminal trials, you have large security measures and that is why this did not happen there. It was done in the former Justice of the Peace Court, which hosts civil cases that people don’t go to, which means mostly lawyers go. The Evelides School which also has, the Evelides buildings, which has criminal cases has good security.”
“The courts that have the pressure of the potential or the possibility of something coming up, those are guarded. That is, to get into the Court of Appeals, you don’t even get in with a coffee or the Euphrates, it has all those elements that make up a good guarding system. However, you say that even where we have the best security and there you can get something. That’s why all of this is constantly being checked.
But here, in this particular building, because of decades where there hasn’t been anything because of the nature of the cases, because people don’t go there. litigants don’t go there, very few people go there. Eleven o’clock in the morning to understand, cases end there. There’s nothing to it. They’re civil cases. So you don’t have that potential danger that has been diagnosed for years. But nevertheless, I repeat, yesterday’s incident teaches us something. Indeed, that even where for decades you have not had a problem because of the nature of the operation of this court, it appears that you may have,” he added.
“Today, tomorrow the Greek Police will finalize with the Ministry, with us, the picture and the proposal that we have to do something different there. Once that is done, next week, these will be sorted out. Everything is proceeding on the basis of a reasonable assessment of things,” Florides added.
