A woman from Patras, in western Greece, has been told she must serve part of a four-year prison sentence for a sustained campaign of online harassment and defamation against an ex boyfriend, a pilot in the Hellenic Air Force.

The 38-year-old is now being sought by the authorities after the three-member Misdemeanours Court of Appeal in Larissa, the main city of the central region of Thessaly, rejected her appeal and upheld the 48-month term imposed at first instance.

The judges dismissed every mitigating factor put forward by her defence and refused to allow the sentence to be converted into a fine. They also ordered her to serve 12 months of it immediately, a step regarded as highly unusual in a case of this kind.

According to the ruling, the victim, who was 37 at the time and lived in the port city of Volos, faced an unprecedented barrage of online attacks. His former partner is accused of setting up 203 fake social media accounts using his name, photographs and personal details.

An Instagram meeting that turned sour

The pair met on Instagram in September 2018, when she was living in Patras and he was based in Volos. She travelled to Volos to meet him in person and stayed for about two weeks.

The situation changed when he had to leave for a few days on duty. According to the case file, his phone was switched off for several hours for service reasons. When he turned it back on, he found a flood of calls and messages waiting for him.

On his return to Volos, he ended the relationship. Court documents describe that decision as the start of a long period of conflict.

The calls and messages allegedly continued after the break-up. Once he had blocked her on social media and stopped replying, she began creating dozens of accounts that appeared to belong to him.

The profiles carried his full name, his photographs and other personal information. They were used to publish posts and send messages to his friends, acquaintances and colleagues, content the prosecution described as insulting and defamatory.

Evidence presented in court attributed a total of 203 such accounts to her.

In 2024, a first-instance court convicted her of breaching personal data laws and of criminal defamation online, handing her a 48-month prison sentence. Her appeal suspended the penalty and sent the case to the appeal court in Larissa.

The new ruling keeps the sentence unchanged. For the pilot, it marks another milestone in a legal battle that began almost eight years ago.