Greek authorities have now shifted their investigation into the assassination of a 54-year-old construction firm co-owner last week in Athens to finding the suspect or suspects that allegedly commissioned the killing.
The shift comes as police believe they have apprehended the sole gunman who ambushed the victim outside his office in the upscale Neo Psychiko district. A 44-year-old former inmate has been arrested and charged in the murder. He has maintained from the very beginning that he has no involvement in the apparent murder-for-hire.
Press reports on Monday have police leaking information by which the victim, a land surveyor by training, acquired property on a Cyclades Island that “someone else wanted very much… It appears, possibly, that someone was bothered and gave an order for his murder”.
The ongoing criminal investigation is also focusing on cell phone records of the victim and the alleged perpetrator.
Meanwhile, two mobile phones, a GPS device and other items, were found in a hidden crypt in the residence of the arrested man. Additionally, the 44-year-old’s companion told police the latter and the victim had met on several occasions on the jet-setting island of Mykonos.
Another issue brought up in relation to the case is how the alleged gunman’s prison sentence was slashed after he was convicted of felony abduction in the past, and specifically the kidnapping for ransom of a well-known shipowner.
He has also been accused of armed robberies while, in fact, serving a sentence at a prison farm in southern Greece, where he reportedly took advantage of the Greek judicial system’s previously lax furlough regime to leave and return to the correctional facility after committing the offenses.
