Vicky Stamati, the wife of convicted former Greek socialist defence minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos, who was also jailed on corruption charges, escaped from a psychiatric hospital early on Thursday morning. Guards found her room empty with a broken window at 6.30 a.m. after she had last been seen shortly after 1 a.m. that morning.
It is believed that she escaped from her balcony at dawn despite the fact that two guards had been stationed outside her room. It is still unknown as to how she managed to break through the bars placed outside her balcony door. She left a note on her bed, though its contents are unknown.
The mental facility’s director Pavlos Theodorakis does not exclude the possibility that Stamati may have had outside help.
This is the patio door — usually locked — from which she escaped:
The incident has been confirmed by her lawyer Frangiskos Ragousis with whom she spoke on Wednesday evening. During their conversation on Wednesday, she had reportedly said, “I won’t die at Dromokaitio abandoned and crazy!”
Stamati had been jailed in April 2012 at an Athens-area central prison for money laundering, amongst other crimes associated with her ex-husband’s activities as minister during a period when the then PASOK government signed several costly weapons procurement contracts. All petitions for her released had been denied, but she had been transfered to the Dromokaition psychiatric facility in a west Athens district following severe depression.
Who is Vicky Stamati?
She hailed from a small village in central Greece but wound up marrying one of the leading ministers in the once powerful PASOK party, with her marriage to the older Tsohatzopoulos raising eyebrows when the reception was held in Paris’ Four Seasons hotel.
Vicky Stamati was born in Zeli, Fthiotida prefecture, on March 3, 1975. As a youth in rural Greece, she was known as Koula (from Vasilikoula). Her family’s political inclinations were reportedly conservative when she was hired to work as an employee of the Public Power Corp. (the power company) where she was also involved in unionising.
She married Akis Tsochatzopoulos in 2004 with a great deal of controversy, with “wags” claiming she caused the break up of his first marriage, and for the haute wedding in Paris. Most Greeks disapproved.
The couple moved to a neo-classical two-storey residence on Dionyssiou Areopagitou, directly across from the Acropolis. A statement of her earnings in 2006 showed just 25,457 euros, and yet she spent 34,860 euros in February 2006 alone for two sofas and 21,480 euros for a coffee table, 2,760 euros for curtain fabric for a nursery in october 2006 and 6,740 euros for currtains in the master bedroom, on top of another 8,986 euros for other curtains in the same year. Mere sofa fringes were an additional 3,100 euros…
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