Ten defendants found guilty over deadly fire near Athens in 2018

Another court previously convicted six of the 21 defendants over the Mati blaze that killed more than 100 people.

A Greek court has found 10 people guilty of negligence over a devastating fire that killed more than 100 people near Athens in 2018. A total of 21 defendants were accused in connection with the fatal blaze that struck the town of Mati, northeast of the capital Athens, after starting in a resident's garden. The Athens Court of Appeal ruled on Tuesday that eight former senior fire brigade officials, a former general secretary for civil protection and the man responsible for starting the fire were guilty of charges including manslaughter by negligence. Only six of these defendants were found guilty in an earlier ruling. They appealed the previous decision, which handed down sentences of up to five years, punishments that were later commuted into fines. As in the earlier case, Konstantinos Angelopoulos, the resident in whose yard the fire started, was unanimously found guilty of arson on Tuesday.Those acquitted this week by the appeals court included Rena Dourou, the former regional governor of Attica, and Elias Psinakis, the then mayor of the town of Marathon. The appeals court will next hear mitigation pleas from the defence, with sentences expected to be announced on Wednesday. The Greek media reported that the victims' family members expressed disappointment at the verdict. From early on Tuesday, the relatives of the victims gathered outside the Court of Appeal, setting up black balloons outside the building. The Association of Victims from Mati also placed 120 white roses in the courtroom.The Court of Appeal's decision puts an end to the criminal assessment of the tragedy. For 11 months, 21 defendants were on trial for the hundreds of deaths and injuries caused by the fire in the summer of 2018.