Two officers from the Crime Prevention and Suppression Unit (OPKE), a Hellenic Police unit responsible for crime suppression and assisting major investigations, have been ordered held in pre-trial detention following their testimony before the investigating magistrate over the severe injury of a 20-year-old man during a police chase in Argos, in the Peloponnese, in the early hours of last Wednesday.

The two officers face a charge of attempted homicide with possible intent.

According to information broadcast by ERT, the Greek state broadcaster, the pair disputed the core elements of the charge in their testimony before the investigating magistrate and stressed that they had no intention of killing the young man. They also challenged the characterisation of possible intent and maintained that they fired their weapons to intimidate him.

The two defendants gave their account of the chase’s final stage, alleging that the suspect tried to hit them with his car at least twice and had already caused damage to service vehicles.

“The shots were warning shots, meant to intimidate him and force him to stop so that we could immobilise him. At no point did we aim towards him with the intention of injuring him. We were both running, him and us,” they are reported to have said.

The young man’s mother has said her son has autism and an 89 percent disability rating, and faces serious difficulties with communication. She said he had secretly taken the car while she was asleep in order to go for a swim, and believes he failed to stop at the officers’ signal because he panicked, having forgotten his driving licence at home.

He remains in an extremely critical condition in the intensive care unit at KAT Hospital, a major trauma centre in Marousi, Athens.

The incident took place in an abandoned building on a service road off the Argos National Highway. The findings of the ballistic and forensic examinations are expected to play a decisive role in establishing the exact circumstances.

Police collected 13 shell casings from the scene, while an air gun was found inside the young man’s car. The two defendants maintain they fired warning shots after losing visual contact with the man they were chasing, in order to force him to stop.

Their defence lawyer, Petros Koukoulis, said his clients categorically reject the characterisation of possible intent. The mother’s lawyer, Maria Sfetsou, said the young man faces problems of mild intellectual disability and, according to what his mother told her, was not carrying any weapon.