His statement unfolded in dramatic tones at the Court of Appeal of the Aegean in Syros, where he stands accused of the July 2021 murder of Garifallia Psarrakou in Folegandros. His defense focused on alleged “memory gaps” and the supposed psychological disorganization he claims to have experienced shortly before the femicide.

The defendant described in detail the appearance of psychotic symptoms in the days leading up to the murder, saying that a drone was “watching” them and that he felt something “boiling inside him.” However, his memory conveniently goes blank at the crucial moments.

When the car “veered off course,” he stated: “I didn’t understand what happened,” adding that he “does not remember” the reason for losing control of the wheel. Immediately after the crash, his memory returns: he remembers Garifallia screaming “help,” and trying to pull her from the water and give her first aid. But he claims to have no memory of how Garifallia ended up in the sea.

When the prosecutor asked, “What do you think actually happened? Did the girl fall off the cliff by herself?”, he denied this and replied: “I believe, as Paulo Coelho writes in The Alchemist, that the whole universe conspired for it to happen.”

The defendant challenged his initial confession (“I got angry and killed her”), claiming it was given under pressure and in a state where “whatever they told me, I would have said yes,” calling it “the confession of a man in that condition.”

The presiding judge pointed out that the defendant remembers the events before and after the killing in detail—but not the killing itself. The defendant insisted: “I can’t bring it back,” expressing remorse and sorrow for the loss.