An extended family of Greek Australians reunited in Athens in 1997. Very much the life of the party was George Karalis from Melbourne, and his first cousin, George Loizos. But less than a year later, they would die together in violent circumstances which remain unexplained.
ANTENNA NEWSREADER: Good evening. Five coroners examind the bodies of two young men found in an inflatable boat at sea
near Schinia.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS, GEORGE LOIZOS' WIDOW (Translation): They were two people who were lost, totally unfairly. Two innocent people, who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
ANTENNA NEWSREADER: The coroners could not unravel the secrete of the double slaughter or what led up to this criminal act.
GEORGE MILONAS, FAMILY MEMBER: It was surreal actually. It felt like something you would see on 'Bold and the Beautiful' or something like that. It was absolutely surreal.
Another first cousin to the two dead men was George Milonas, shown here with his cousins - George Loizos on the left and George Karalis on the right. In family circles, they were known as "the three Georges". From his Australian base, George Milonas has been demanding answers about his cousins' deaths in Greece. Four years on, only questions remain. Questions that will ultimately be the subject of an Australian coronial inquest, although as we will see, many of the players have their own theories. Milonas's quest for justice has brought him into conflict with the Greek authorities who investigated the deaths.
GEORGE MILONAS: You know, for them not to be willing to solve a simple murder - and it is a simple murder when you look at all the facts - not to be willing to look at it when they're hosting some of the most important people in the world in a couple of years time, that's a bit of a joke.
In Greece, the young widow of George Loizos, Effie, has led the family's fight with the Greek authorities.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): They made very many mistakes. Today, I can say I'm glad they did. Those mistakes are what sustain me.
The preface for this tragic tale began many years ago in Melbourne. For nearly two decades, the Loizos, Karalis and Milonas families lived together there. Their children were all first cousins, and the bond was close.
GEORGE MILONAS: And just an example, I had a car accident probably three months before George Karalis died. He was in America, he heard about it and he called me up and he used this word called 'antikisa' in Greek and it means when I heard you had a car accident the hairs on my arms and legs just rose up and I had to call you straightaway - you know, are you alright, what's happened? That was just the type of the person he was - he was very emotional, probably sometimes too emotional, but that was the loving aspect of him.
In the early '80s, the Loizos family returned to Greece permanently. But the friendship amongst the three cousins was merely interrupted. Nea Makri, an hour's drive from Athens and the town where George Loizos made his home and his reputation as a radio DJ. As a local radio personality, George Loizos was well-known in Nea Makri. He was an environmentalist, loved music and took a keen interest in Greek history and literature. When his cousin George Karalis made an extended visit to Greece in 1997, he also became popular with the Nea Makri locals.
EFFIE LOIZOS, GEORGE LOIZOS' SISTER: In one month, he knew Greek better than me, even the slang words we use, he knew them better than me. And he got really strong, you know, like when somebody comes to a different country and he doesn't know how to stand in a place or speak or whatever, he got so connected he started connecting with the people very good, very well, and he was so friendly everybody loved him, especially our friends.
June 2, 1998, and George Loizos decided to take his visiting cousin, George Karalis, for a late afternoon boat trip across the Evvia Straits. Nea Makri lies on the western flanks of the Evvia Straits. The seaside town of Porto Bufalu is less than an hour's boat ride away, a popular joy trip destination. The boys left late in the afternoon, but the mountains of Evvia were still clearly visible in the distance. They made good time to Porto Bufalu. They shared a coffee and an ouzo at the local taverna. Witnesses there described the two cousins as being in good spirits. The same witnesses waved to the two Georges as they headed off on their return to Nea Makri. It was just before 7pm, the sun was still well up in the sky and the seas were dead calm. At about 4:30am, a fisherman found the boys' boat drifting a short distance north-east of Nea Makri. He came closer to investigate.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): What they had told me from the first moment was, they'd found the inflatable boat without the boys on board. To be honest, that made me very happy. I knew both of them were very capable. They were very athletic and both were good swimmers. So I thought "Okay, something happened to the boat, bad weather, they lost the boat. It's not a problem."
With no access to the radio, and sitting in the port police office in nearby Rafina, Effie was unaware that her husband had been discovered on board.
NEWS REPORTER (Translation): Right at the back there, where you see the engine, George Loizos' body was found. He was tied up with a two-metre rope. He was tied at the belt and his chest was, literally, cut to pieces.
PANAYOTIS GIAMORELLES, INDEPENDENT CORONER (Translation): They had tied him up and thrown him in, with his shoes and socks. The propeller caught him when the outboard was started and it cut him to pieces. The body wasn't dismembered, it was whole, bit it had ten large wounds and it had now become...It was a horrible sight. Horrible and disgusting. It was the first time I'd seen a person so cut up.
Both men were dead. George Karalis was hanging from the rollbar of the speedboat. His cousin George Loizos, face down in the water, was tied with his belt to the side of the propeller. The boat was full of blood.
STAMATIS KOUKINOGENIS, FATHER-IN-LAW (Translation): They're cut to pieces, not wounded.
It was up to Stamatis Koukinougenis, Effie's father, to hold the family together as the devastating news filtered through. Even during those early hours, he recalls becoming uneasy about the investigation.
STAMATIS KOUKINOUGENIS (Translation): I kept trying to control myself and stay calm because I was seeing all these crazy things. I saw that when the coroner arrived, a Mrs Marianou saying "Let's go, let's go." "Who does she think she is?" I asked. With the help of God, at around 2:30, Effie was here and I decided it was time to tell her. She asked me if the boys had been injured. I said, "No, both the boys are dead." Effie smiled slightly and said "That's funny." Then it hit her. As you can imagine, there were terrible scenes.
Upon discovering the carnage, the fisherman alerted port authorities immediately and a police team was dispatched. Coroners from Athens were also called. Heading the team - Dr Sultana Marianou. But Dr Marianou refused to attend the crime scene at sea. She ordered that the boat be returned to port.
PANAYOTIS GIAMORELLES (Translation): They conducted an autopsy which would make you weep. They moved the body, they moved the boat. "Bring them here to me for the autopsy." "Bring me this, bring me that." Imagine! It's just not done!
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): Mrs Marianou ordered the boat to be moved from there, the two boys on it, as they were, waves tossing them about, shifting their position, all the way from Schinia to Rafina. Do you know how far that is?
The investigation during those crucial first hours was deeply flawed. Litres of blood was splattered throughout the boat and yet only one blood sample was taken. Not one fingerprint was sought. A palm print was taken, but the print was accidentally destroyed. Residue from a flare gun was found in the boat, but no samples were tested. The thickened glass windscreen was shattered, but no glass was found in the boat. Again, police showed little interest. To top off this litany of investigative omissions, within hours of the boat being returned to Rafina, the policeman heading the investigation, Nikos Ekonomakis, ordered that it be thoroughly cleaned. Not a skerrick of further evidence remained. Ekonomakis was head of the Piraeus Port Police. He'd previously worked as a press relations official for the port authority, and had a reputation for being media-savvy. He lost no time in sharing his thoughts with the assembled media.
NIKOS EKONOMAKIS (Translation): The involvement of a third party is excluded in tis episode. In this accident that has occurred.
Ekonomakis was suggesting that the cousins' deaths was a murder-suicide, that Karalis had killed his Greek cousin, and then killed himself. Ekonomakis claimed that this theory was agreed upon with the coroner, Dr Marianou, and her team.
GEORGE MILONAS: The findings were ridiculous.
PANAYOTIS GIAMORELLES (Translation): Inexperience. Inexperience, inexperience. I had even warned them not to categorise the findings. I said "Note down the marks on the neck and other findings but avoid interpreting them." "No, sir, we won't." They go and write down "suicide"!
Dr Giamorelles' expertise as a forensic specialist is well-documented. For many years, he was Athens' chief coroner, and he's familiar with the work of many of the specialists who worked on this case. He was contracted by the family as an independent examiner just hours after the boys' bodies were discovered. He says that in his opinion
the death of George Karalis was no suicide.
PANAYOTIS GIAMORELLES (Translation): I SAW THAT THE MARK WAS ALL THE WAY TO THE BACK. Therefore it was strangulation, not a hanging. Strangulation with a noose is always a crime. You can never commit suicide by strangulation because as you're tightening you lose consciousness and let go.
That a murder-suicide theory was ever announced was surprising enough, but the speed with which it was announced to the press was also criticized.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): He gave out certain information to the journalists, in those first few hours, before there'd been any investigation, before there'd been any official conclusion, and yet he came out and said, "From the evidence to date, no third party was involved. Whatever occurred, happened between the two boys."
NEWS REPORTER AT SCENE (Translation): What went on here? Had the two cousins argued over something at some point in the night? No one can think of any logical explanation.
The first few hours of horror endured by the families was about to take a turn for the worse. Television and newspaper speculation about why one cousin would kill another was frenzied. Most of the journalists involved reported anonymous police contacts as their sources.
GEORGE MILONAS: We would hear situations out of the media and in newspapers that it was a domestic feud between the two boys, that they were actually gay lovers and they had a domestic feud. We would hear situations that it was leaked by the authorities that the family had a large insurance policy on George Karalis's life, and so it was all set up that way. So, it's not enough that you lose a loved one, but, you know, you're told you killed him to collect your insurance. You're told he's in love with his cousin so he kills him. What are people thinking?
ILLIANA TSAGARI 'VRADINI' NEWSPAPER (Translation): We may all have fallen victim to the stupidity of a few people, or of one person, and the others were swept up in it too. It's possible, but I don't think so.
As an investigative reporter with the Athen's newspaper 'Vradini', Illiana Tsagari has been warned off more stories than she'd care to remember. Over the years, she's had numerous death threats and menacing phone calls. This story is no different. Tsagari believes the handling of the Loizos-Karalis killings was highly questionable.
ILLIANA TSAGARI (Translation): It shows, if nothing else, whether it be the prosecutors, the authorities or harbour police, an inability to solve such a serious case. It's embarrassing, that Greek authorities have so many unsolved cases in their files. I don't know if, in this case, they have something to hide, but there are so many mistakes.
STEPHEN CURNOW, RETIRED HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: It's been handled in such a way as to suggest that, one, people had preconceived ideas, or two, people didn't want to know the truth, or three, there was just total and utter incompetence, and I've got to ask the question - well, how can such a level of incompetence exist in a modern-day police force? And I just find it - yeah - mind-boggling, sorry.
Stephen Curnow spent more than a decade with Melbourne's elite homicide squad. At the request of the victims' families and in the absence of any proper investigation by Greek authorities, he's done his best to piece together the few clues available.
STEPHEN CURNOW: This is Mr Karalis's arm. It shows an incision in the wrist and minimal blood. This has clearly been inflicted after his death. An injury of this nature, with his hands raised above his head, would cause massive bleeding. As you can see around the arm, there is no dried blood, there's no evidence of any further blood there. That is because the injuries have been inflicted at post-mortem.
Curnow found abundant evidence that led him to believe not only that the two men had been murdered, but also that they had stumbled upon something they weren't supposed to see.
STEPHEN CURNOW: This is very similar to the old thing you see in the westerns, where somebody would be hanging from a noose when you walk into a town. It's a warning. The level of violence depicted in this particular murder is just over the top. There's no need for it, but then to physically display the bodies in the way they have...
ILLIANA TSAGARI (Translation): That a substance was found in the boat which was a product of combustion, meaning the boys used flares, proves the boys found themselves in danger.
GEORGE MILONAS: Because of the way the boys were found, the people who did this would have to be professional killers, wouldn't have to be one or two, and they would have to have absolutely no regard for human life whatsoever. If you see the murder scene photographs and the distressing aspects of it all, you couldn't do that to an animal. It really is horrendous.
Christos Vasilopoulos is director of news for the Athens-based Mega Channel.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS, MEGA CHANNEL, ATHENS (Translation): The sea has its silence. It has its deep blue and it has its secrets. As a Greek, I'm interested in finding the answers. Secondly, and even more importantly, because I suspect that it's not our compatriots who are responsible for this type of activity. I'd like to know who is entering our country intent on ruining it.
Christos believes that organised crime - now more organised and more brutal than ever before - was behind the Nea Makri killings. He's convinced that the men were the victims of smugglers.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS (Translation): Our fishermen in the Aegean say that in the most incredible spots small, makeshift jetties have cropped up, indicating illegal activities. In the middle of nowhere, illegal transactions occur without anyone detecting them.
The Aegean is a smuggler's paradise, and the Evvian Straits with its hundreds of small islands and rocky outcrops form a major thoroughfare. Cigarettes are the contraband of choice. Tax-free smuggling of cigarettes costs the European community around $2 billion a year. In the past four years, more than 20 ships have been seized in Greek waters packed with cigarettes. Greek arrests account for nearly half of the European total. Criminal gangs are drawn to the trade because of the huge profits and relatively short jail terms.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS (Translation): Two or three months after the double crime in the Evvian Gulf, the port authority, together with other services, seized a Ukrainian boat a few miles away at Karistos which had unloaded a cargo of smuggled cigarettes. Not long after, a few months, again in the Evvian Gulf, something similar happened. This scenario, in an area that previously had no such problems, would indicate illegal activities and the passage of ships through the area. And it's quite possible the two unfortunate lads were witness to such transactions.
Christos has some compelling evidence to add weight to his theories that Loizos and Karalis were the victims of smugglers. It came with an anonymous phone call which the Greek journalist recorded right after a report he broadcast about slow progress in the investigation.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS (Translation): Around that time, I got a call at my office after a broadcast where we'd presented the facts we had and voiced our concerns. It was an unidentified man who spoke hurriedly, as if he wanted to unburden himself of a great weight.
TAPE RECORDING: "I'm whispering because I don't want my wife to hear. Three years ago, my two cousins and I set out from Porto Rafti, heading out to sea to fish across the way."
The caller described how he was fishing in exactly the same area where the boys had travelled. He and his cousins spotted a large cargo ship unloading boxes onto a speedboat. Minutes later, their boat was boarded by five armed men.
TAPE RECORDING: "They were armed. We lost it! We didn't know what to say. "We didn't see anything, guys." They boarded our boat. In the meantime, the weather was building. They wrote down my cousin's particulars from his documents and told us they had our addresses and so on. "If we hear you've told anyone, we'll kill you and your entire family, the next day." They tied our hands. And with me in particular, me in particular, they tied a noose around my neck.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS: A noose around your neck?
TAPE RECORDING: Yes, a noose.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS (to reporter): What we call "coincidences" need to be investigated. It can't be a mere coincidence that the lads were found murdered at a certain place and four nautical miles away, in the space of six months, two loads of illegal cigarettes were seized which had come...from Ukraine.
Despite a barrage of evidence pointing to a double homicide and the likely involvement of organised crime, for months Greek authorities clung to the theory of murder-suicide. It was only after a full year that the investigating prosecutor declared the crime to be, in fact, a double murder. But by then, the will to find the boys' killers had evaporated. The file was left open, but inactive.
STEPHEN CURNOW: You've got to ask, why?
Illiana Tsagari's pursuit of the truth about the Loizos-Karalis killings has already brought her into conflict with the authorities, when she wrote an article criticising the investigation.
ILLIANA TSAGARI (Translation): The public prosecutor reacted by ringing the publisher and editor of this newspaper and saying if we continued to run this story, they'd sue us for 400 million drachmas. I felt the pressure and we stopped for a while. Then, of course, we started again because now, I'd taken it personally.
Effie also received threatening phone calls of a more sinister nature. In the months after the boys' deaths, an anonymous caller repeatedly threatened her with a violent end if she didn't stop pushing the investigation.
EFFIE KOUINOGENIS (Translation): I had reported it to the port authority and the prosecutor. At one point, I even asked for protection and was refused. It doesn't matter. I'm not afraid.
STEPHEN CURNOW: It was quite clear that many of the people are afraid to speak out
and they're afraid of things that might happen and that's sad. I mean, that's a very sad indictment on what's happening over there, which again poses another question - why? I don't know. There's no rhyme nor reason for it.
If answers to this case are to be found, and justice achieved, the family believe that Australia holds the key. Although his death occurred overseas, as an Australian citizen, the death of George Karalis was brought under the auspices of the Victorian coronial process as well as the Greek one.
The Victorian Coroner must ultimately assess the different theories and possibilities.
GEORGE MILONAS: What the Greek authorities failed to realise
was that George Karalis has to have a finding into his death.
They didn't realise that one, there was an Australian citizen involved, so it's not two Greek citizens whereby they can just wash it under the table and push it to the side and forget about it. All of a sudden, they've got duties and responsibilities to another country, because they're hosting that citizen over there. So they must stand up and be accountable for what their actions are.
But Greek authorities seem to be less than co-operative in relation to
that process as well. More than a year ago, the Victorian coroner requested further evidence, including the telephone records of the port police commander, Nikos Ekonomakis. But the Greeks have so far failed to comply (20/02/02).
Nevertheless, the family believe that the truth will emerge and the inadequacies of the Greek investigation will be laid bare.
STEPHEN CURNOW: Now if the family continue to continue this line of investigation and uncover something, well, clearly, they are in the same risk factor as what the two boys were, so one can only assume that if they killed two boys they are not going to stop just killing those two, they will continue to do what's necessary to cover up whatever illicit activities they were covering up to start with.
Despite the obvious risks, the family are determined to uncover the truth. They say Greece has let them down.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): Unfortunately, for those of us who are Greek, unfortunately, for George, who loved Greece so much. He ached for it so much and he felt so proud of it. Greece didn't stand by George.
ILLIANA TSAGARI (Translation): Greece is the birthplace of democracy. We exploit our ancestors without doing anything over and above what we've been taught by them. Nor do we do more than our esteemed ancestors did for this nation to be created. The judicial system in Greece is haemorrhaging, just as all the country's systems are haemorrhaging.
GEORGE MILONAS: We just hope one day that someone has a conscience over there and actually does a right thing from a humanitarian point of view, more than anything else. And, you know, justice should be served. After all, the Greeks did invent the justice system.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): I won't give up. I won't give up because I swore on George's grave. I'll get to the bottom of this and I will. There's no way I won't.
ANTENNA NEWSREADER: Good evening. Five coroners examind the bodies of two young men found in an inflatable boat at sea
near Schinia.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS, GEORGE LOIZOS' WIDOW (Translation): They were two people who were lost, totally unfairly. Two innocent people, who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
ANTENNA NEWSREADER: The coroners could not unravel the secrete of the double slaughter or what led up to this criminal act.
GEORGE MILONAS, FAMILY MEMBER: It was surreal actually. It felt like something you would see on 'Bold and the Beautiful' or something like that. It was absolutely surreal.
Another first cousin to the two dead men was George Milonas, shown here with his cousins - George Loizos on the left and George Karalis on the right. In family circles, they were known as "the three Georges". From his Australian base, George Milonas has been demanding answers about his cousins' deaths in Greece. Four years on, only questions remain. Questions that will ultimately be the subject of an Australian coronial inquest, although as we will see, many of the players have their own theories. Milonas's quest for justice has brought him into conflict with the Greek authorities who investigated the deaths.
GEORGE MILONAS: You know, for them not to be willing to solve a simple murder - and it is a simple murder when you look at all the facts - not to be willing to look at it when they're hosting some of the most important people in the world in a couple of years time, that's a bit of a joke.
In Greece, the young widow of George Loizos, Effie, has led the family's fight with the Greek authorities.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): They made very many mistakes. Today, I can say I'm glad they did. Those mistakes are what sustain me.
The preface for this tragic tale began many years ago in Melbourne. For nearly two decades, the Loizos, Karalis and Milonas families lived together there. Their children were all first cousins, and the bond was close.
GEORGE MILONAS: And just an example, I had a car accident probably three months before George Karalis died. He was in America, he heard about it and he called me up and he used this word called 'antikisa' in Greek and it means when I heard you had a car accident the hairs on my arms and legs just rose up and I had to call you straightaway - you know, are you alright, what's happened? That was just the type of the person he was - he was very emotional, probably sometimes too emotional, but that was the loving aspect of him.
In the early '80s, the Loizos family returned to Greece permanently. But the friendship amongst the three cousins was merely interrupted. Nea Makri, an hour's drive from Athens and the town where George Loizos made his home and his reputation as a radio DJ. As a local radio personality, George Loizos was well-known in Nea Makri. He was an environmentalist, loved music and took a keen interest in Greek history and literature. When his cousin George Karalis made an extended visit to Greece in 1997, he also became popular with the Nea Makri locals.
EFFIE LOIZOS, GEORGE LOIZOS' SISTER: In one month, he knew Greek better than me, even the slang words we use, he knew them better than me. And he got really strong, you know, like when somebody comes to a different country and he doesn't know how to stand in a place or speak or whatever, he got so connected he started connecting with the people very good, very well, and he was so friendly everybody loved him, especially our friends.
June 2, 1998, and George Loizos decided to take his visiting cousin, George Karalis, for a late afternoon boat trip across the Evvia Straits. Nea Makri lies on the western flanks of the Evvia Straits. The seaside town of Porto Bufalu is less than an hour's boat ride away, a popular joy trip destination. The boys left late in the afternoon, but the mountains of Evvia were still clearly visible in the distance. They made good time to Porto Bufalu. They shared a coffee and an ouzo at the local taverna. Witnesses there described the two cousins as being in good spirits. The same witnesses waved to the two Georges as they headed off on their return to Nea Makri. It was just before 7pm, the sun was still well up in the sky and the seas were dead calm. At about 4:30am, a fisherman found the boys' boat drifting a short distance north-east of Nea Makri. He came closer to investigate.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): What they had told me from the first moment was, they'd found the inflatable boat without the boys on board. To be honest, that made me very happy. I knew both of them were very capable. They were very athletic and both were good swimmers. So I thought "Okay, something happened to the boat, bad weather, they lost the boat. It's not a problem."
With no access to the radio, and sitting in the port police office in nearby Rafina, Effie was unaware that her husband had been discovered on board.
NEWS REPORTER (Translation): Right at the back there, where you see the engine, George Loizos' body was found. He was tied up with a two-metre rope. He was tied at the belt and his chest was, literally, cut to pieces.
PANAYOTIS GIAMORELLES, INDEPENDENT CORONER (Translation): They had tied him up and thrown him in, with his shoes and socks. The propeller caught him when the outboard was started and it cut him to pieces. The body wasn't dismembered, it was whole, bit it had ten large wounds and it had now become...It was a horrible sight. Horrible and disgusting. It was the first time I'd seen a person so cut up.
Both men were dead. George Karalis was hanging from the rollbar of the speedboat. His cousin George Loizos, face down in the water, was tied with his belt to the side of the propeller. The boat was full of blood.
STAMATIS KOUKINOGENIS, FATHER-IN-LAW (Translation): They're cut to pieces, not wounded.
It was up to Stamatis Koukinougenis, Effie's father, to hold the family together as the devastating news filtered through. Even during those early hours, he recalls becoming uneasy about the investigation.
STAMATIS KOUKINOUGENIS (Translation): I kept trying to control myself and stay calm because I was seeing all these crazy things. I saw that when the coroner arrived, a Mrs Marianou saying "Let's go, let's go." "Who does she think she is?" I asked. With the help of God, at around 2:30, Effie was here and I decided it was time to tell her. She asked me if the boys had been injured. I said, "No, both the boys are dead." Effie smiled slightly and said "That's funny." Then it hit her. As you can imagine, there were terrible scenes.
Upon discovering the carnage, the fisherman alerted port authorities immediately and a police team was dispatched. Coroners from Athens were also called. Heading the team - Dr Sultana Marianou. But Dr Marianou refused to attend the crime scene at sea. She ordered that the boat be returned to port.
PANAYOTIS GIAMORELLES (Translation): They conducted an autopsy which would make you weep. They moved the body, they moved the boat. "Bring them here to me for the autopsy." "Bring me this, bring me that." Imagine! It's just not done!
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): Mrs Marianou ordered the boat to be moved from there, the two boys on it, as they were, waves tossing them about, shifting their position, all the way from Schinia to Rafina. Do you know how far that is?
The investigation during those crucial first hours was deeply flawed. Litres of blood was splattered throughout the boat and yet only one blood sample was taken. Not one fingerprint was sought. A palm print was taken, but the print was accidentally destroyed. Residue from a flare gun was found in the boat, but no samples were tested. The thickened glass windscreen was shattered, but no glass was found in the boat. Again, police showed little interest. To top off this litany of investigative omissions, within hours of the boat being returned to Rafina, the policeman heading the investigation, Nikos Ekonomakis, ordered that it be thoroughly cleaned. Not a skerrick of further evidence remained. Ekonomakis was head of the Piraeus Port Police. He'd previously worked as a press relations official for the port authority, and had a reputation for being media-savvy. He lost no time in sharing his thoughts with the assembled media.
NIKOS EKONOMAKIS (Translation): The involvement of a third party is excluded in tis episode. In this accident that has occurred.
Ekonomakis was suggesting that the cousins' deaths was a murder-suicide, that Karalis had killed his Greek cousin, and then killed himself. Ekonomakis claimed that this theory was agreed upon with the coroner, Dr Marianou, and her team.
GEORGE MILONAS: The findings were ridiculous.
PANAYOTIS GIAMORELLES (Translation): Inexperience. Inexperience, inexperience. I had even warned them not to categorise the findings. I said "Note down the marks on the neck and other findings but avoid interpreting them." "No, sir, we won't." They go and write down "suicide"!
Dr Giamorelles' expertise as a forensic specialist is well-documented. For many years, he was Athens' chief coroner, and he's familiar with the work of many of the specialists who worked on this case. He was contracted by the family as an independent examiner just hours after the boys' bodies were discovered. He says that in his opinion
the death of George Karalis was no suicide.
PANAYOTIS GIAMORELLES (Translation): I SAW THAT THE MARK WAS ALL THE WAY TO THE BACK. Therefore it was strangulation, not a hanging. Strangulation with a noose is always a crime. You can never commit suicide by strangulation because as you're tightening you lose consciousness and let go.
That a murder-suicide theory was ever announced was surprising enough, but the speed with which it was announced to the press was also criticized.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): He gave out certain information to the journalists, in those first few hours, before there'd been any investigation, before there'd been any official conclusion, and yet he came out and said, "From the evidence to date, no third party was involved. Whatever occurred, happened between the two boys."
NEWS REPORTER AT SCENE (Translation): What went on here? Had the two cousins argued over something at some point in the night? No one can think of any logical explanation.
The first few hours of horror endured by the families was about to take a turn for the worse. Television and newspaper speculation about why one cousin would kill another was frenzied. Most of the journalists involved reported anonymous police contacts as their sources.
GEORGE MILONAS: We would hear situations out of the media and in newspapers that it was a domestic feud between the two boys, that they were actually gay lovers and they had a domestic feud. We would hear situations that it was leaked by the authorities that the family had a large insurance policy on George Karalis's life, and so it was all set up that way. So, it's not enough that you lose a loved one, but, you know, you're told you killed him to collect your insurance. You're told he's in love with his cousin so he kills him. What are people thinking?
ILLIANA TSAGARI 'VRADINI' NEWSPAPER (Translation): We may all have fallen victim to the stupidity of a few people, or of one person, and the others were swept up in it too. It's possible, but I don't think so.
As an investigative reporter with the Athen's newspaper 'Vradini', Illiana Tsagari has been warned off more stories than she'd care to remember. Over the years, she's had numerous death threats and menacing phone calls. This story is no different. Tsagari believes the handling of the Loizos-Karalis killings was highly questionable.
ILLIANA TSAGARI (Translation): It shows, if nothing else, whether it be the prosecutors, the authorities or harbour police, an inability to solve such a serious case. It's embarrassing, that Greek authorities have so many unsolved cases in their files. I don't know if, in this case, they have something to hide, but there are so many mistakes.
STEPHEN CURNOW, RETIRED HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: It's been handled in such a way as to suggest that, one, people had preconceived ideas, or two, people didn't want to know the truth, or three, there was just total and utter incompetence, and I've got to ask the question - well, how can such a level of incompetence exist in a modern-day police force? And I just find it - yeah - mind-boggling, sorry.
Stephen Curnow spent more than a decade with Melbourne's elite homicide squad. At the request of the victims' families and in the absence of any proper investigation by Greek authorities, he's done his best to piece together the few clues available.
STEPHEN CURNOW: This is Mr Karalis's arm. It shows an incision in the wrist and minimal blood. This has clearly been inflicted after his death. An injury of this nature, with his hands raised above his head, would cause massive bleeding. As you can see around the arm, there is no dried blood, there's no evidence of any further blood there. That is because the injuries have been inflicted at post-mortem.
Curnow found abundant evidence that led him to believe not only that the two men had been murdered, but also that they had stumbled upon something they weren't supposed to see.
STEPHEN CURNOW: This is very similar to the old thing you see in the westerns, where somebody would be hanging from a noose when you walk into a town. It's a warning. The level of violence depicted in this particular murder is just over the top. There's no need for it, but then to physically display the bodies in the way they have...
ILLIANA TSAGARI (Translation): That a substance was found in the boat which was a product of combustion, meaning the boys used flares, proves the boys found themselves in danger.
GEORGE MILONAS: Because of the way the boys were found, the people who did this would have to be professional killers, wouldn't have to be one or two, and they would have to have absolutely no regard for human life whatsoever. If you see the murder scene photographs and the distressing aspects of it all, you couldn't do that to an animal. It really is horrendous.
Christos Vasilopoulos is director of news for the Athens-based Mega Channel.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS, MEGA CHANNEL, ATHENS (Translation): The sea has its silence. It has its deep blue and it has its secrets. As a Greek, I'm interested in finding the answers. Secondly, and even more importantly, because I suspect that it's not our compatriots who are responsible for this type of activity. I'd like to know who is entering our country intent on ruining it.
Christos believes that organised crime - now more organised and more brutal than ever before - was behind the Nea Makri killings. He's convinced that the men were the victims of smugglers.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS (Translation): Our fishermen in the Aegean say that in the most incredible spots small, makeshift jetties have cropped up, indicating illegal activities. In the middle of nowhere, illegal transactions occur without anyone detecting them.
The Aegean is a smuggler's paradise, and the Evvian Straits with its hundreds of small islands and rocky outcrops form a major thoroughfare. Cigarettes are the contraband of choice. Tax-free smuggling of cigarettes costs the European community around $2 billion a year. In the past four years, more than 20 ships have been seized in Greek waters packed with cigarettes. Greek arrests account for nearly half of the European total. Criminal gangs are drawn to the trade because of the huge profits and relatively short jail terms.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS (Translation): Two or three months after the double crime in the Evvian Gulf, the port authority, together with other services, seized a Ukrainian boat a few miles away at Karistos which had unloaded a cargo of smuggled cigarettes. Not long after, a few months, again in the Evvian Gulf, something similar happened. This scenario, in an area that previously had no such problems, would indicate illegal activities and the passage of ships through the area. And it's quite possible the two unfortunate lads were witness to such transactions.
Christos has some compelling evidence to add weight to his theories that Loizos and Karalis were the victims of smugglers. It came with an anonymous phone call which the Greek journalist recorded right after a report he broadcast about slow progress in the investigation.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS (Translation): Around that time, I got a call at my office after a broadcast where we'd presented the facts we had and voiced our concerns. It was an unidentified man who spoke hurriedly, as if he wanted to unburden himself of a great weight.
TAPE RECORDING: "I'm whispering because I don't want my wife to hear. Three years ago, my two cousins and I set out from Porto Rafti, heading out to sea to fish across the way."
The caller described how he was fishing in exactly the same area where the boys had travelled. He and his cousins spotted a large cargo ship unloading boxes onto a speedboat. Minutes later, their boat was boarded by five armed men.
TAPE RECORDING: "They were armed. We lost it! We didn't know what to say. "We didn't see anything, guys." They boarded our boat. In the meantime, the weather was building. They wrote down my cousin's particulars from his documents and told us they had our addresses and so on. "If we hear you've told anyone, we'll kill you and your entire family, the next day." They tied our hands. And with me in particular, me in particular, they tied a noose around my neck.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS: A noose around your neck?
TAPE RECORDING: Yes, a noose.
CHRISTOS VASILOPOULOS (to reporter): What we call "coincidences" need to be investigated. It can't be a mere coincidence that the lads were found murdered at a certain place and four nautical miles away, in the space of six months, two loads of illegal cigarettes were seized which had come...from Ukraine.
Despite a barrage of evidence pointing to a double homicide and the likely involvement of organised crime, for months Greek authorities clung to the theory of murder-suicide. It was only after a full year that the investigating prosecutor declared the crime to be, in fact, a double murder. But by then, the will to find the boys' killers had evaporated. The file was left open, but inactive.
STEPHEN CURNOW: You've got to ask, why?
Illiana Tsagari's pursuit of the truth about the Loizos-Karalis killings has already brought her into conflict with the authorities, when she wrote an article criticising the investigation.
ILLIANA TSAGARI (Translation): The public prosecutor reacted by ringing the publisher and editor of this newspaper and saying if we continued to run this story, they'd sue us for 400 million drachmas. I felt the pressure and we stopped for a while. Then, of course, we started again because now, I'd taken it personally.
Effie also received threatening phone calls of a more sinister nature. In the months after the boys' deaths, an anonymous caller repeatedly threatened her with a violent end if she didn't stop pushing the investigation.
EFFIE KOUINOGENIS (Translation): I had reported it to the port authority and the prosecutor. At one point, I even asked for protection and was refused. It doesn't matter. I'm not afraid.
STEPHEN CURNOW: It was quite clear that many of the people are afraid to speak out
and they're afraid of things that might happen and that's sad. I mean, that's a very sad indictment on what's happening over there, which again poses another question - why? I don't know. There's no rhyme nor reason for it.
If answers to this case are to be found, and justice achieved, the family believe that Australia holds the key. Although his death occurred overseas, as an Australian citizen, the death of George Karalis was brought under the auspices of the Victorian coronial process as well as the Greek one.
The Victorian Coroner must ultimately assess the different theories and possibilities.
GEORGE MILONAS: What the Greek authorities failed to realise
was that George Karalis has to have a finding into his death.
They didn't realise that one, there was an Australian citizen involved, so it's not two Greek citizens whereby they can just wash it under the table and push it to the side and forget about it. All of a sudden, they've got duties and responsibilities to another country, because they're hosting that citizen over there. So they must stand up and be accountable for what their actions are.
But Greek authorities seem to be less than co-operative in relation to
that process as well. More than a year ago, the Victorian coroner requested further evidence, including the telephone records of the port police commander, Nikos Ekonomakis. But the Greeks have so far failed to comply (20/02/02).
Nevertheless, the family believe that the truth will emerge and the inadequacies of the Greek investigation will be laid bare.
STEPHEN CURNOW: Now if the family continue to continue this line of investigation and uncover something, well, clearly, they are in the same risk factor as what the two boys were, so one can only assume that if they killed two boys they are not going to stop just killing those two, they will continue to do what's necessary to cover up whatever illicit activities they were covering up to start with.
Despite the obvious risks, the family are determined to uncover the truth. They say Greece has let them down.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): Unfortunately, for those of us who are Greek, unfortunately, for George, who loved Greece so much. He ached for it so much and he felt so proud of it. Greece didn't stand by George.
ILLIANA TSAGARI (Translation): Greece is the birthplace of democracy. We exploit our ancestors without doing anything over and above what we've been taught by them. Nor do we do more than our esteemed ancestors did for this nation to be created. The judicial system in Greece is haemorrhaging, just as all the country's systems are haemorrhaging.
GEORGE MILONAS: We just hope one day that someone has a conscience over there and actually does a right thing from a humanitarian point of view, more than anything else. And, you know, justice should be served. After all, the Greeks did invent the justice system.
EFFIE KOUKINOGENIS (Translation): I won't give up. I won't give up because I swore on George's grave. I'll get to the bottom of this and I will. There's no way I won't.