A video of missing technical college student Vangelis Giakoumakis, 20, at a party shows the young man with his family on New Year’s Day 2015. The video was posted on Youtube on Feb. 28 by another man, Matthew Mathioudakis, who was present at the celebration, but is otherwise unconnected with the case.
The young man’s disappearance has generated increased interest and media coverage in Greece, with authorities and groups of volunteers searching for him since he went missing from his college in the northwest lake-side city of Ioannina.
The student looks a little withdrawn and thoughtful in the footage. Reports in recent days speak of the young man being hazed and bullied by classmates, all reportedly hailing from his native Crete. The still unconfirmed reports, in fact, claim that the same group of students would pull him around with a rope around his neck and tie him to chairs.
Giakoumakis, who went missing from Ioannina on Feb. 6, appears in the last few minutes of the video.
Mathioudakis said the footage was from the home of Vangelis’ cousin in a remote Cretan village near Mt. Vrysina. He decided to post the video in the hope that it could help in the investigation underway to find the missing student.
The young was studying at an agricultural school specializing in dairy production, located in a rural suburb, Katsikas, just outside Ioannina. He had been wearing a sweatshirt with a blue stamp on it, blue jeans and black leather shoes. He is 1.75m tall and was slightly unshaven at the time.
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