Nine jewels of the unforgettable Zoe Laskari, valued at a minimum of €120,000 by gallerist Giorgos Tsangarakis, were set to go to auction following a decision by her daughter, Martha Koutoumanou, to sell them.

This decision reportedly surprised Alexandros Lykourezos and his daughter Maria-Elena, now preferring to be called Aithra, who clarified that they were not involved in the auction of the nine pieces.

Although the gallerist initially refrained from revealing the owner’s identity due to privacy and professional confidentiality, Alexandros Lykourezos’ statement left little doubt as to the ownership.

On the morning of Friday (November 22), an issue arose concerning the Saturday auction. Giorgos Tsangarakis disclosed that he received a legal injunction from a private individual to whom Martha Koutoumanou owed money.

The following day, the renowned gallerist announced that the auction had been postponed.

He explained to “Thema” regarding this development, “The lawyers from both sides are working to resolve the issue so that the auction can proceed as planned. After all, the claimant’s demand is minimal compared to the value of these specific pieces.”

Should the matter remain unresolved, the Saturday auction would be rescheduled for another date, pending the settlement of Martha Koutoumanou’s debt to the individual who issued the injunction.

The jewelry in question—pearl necklaces, earrings, and rings—reportedly came into Martha’s possession after her mother’s passing and the division of Zoe Laskari’s estate, which was split between her and Maria-Elena Lykourezos.

Zoe Laskari’s husband, Alexandros Lykourezos, chose not to participate in the inheritance distribution, opting to remain out of the process regarding the wealth she had accumulated.

This division included the famous villa in Porto Rafti, which sparked an internal family conflict, pitting Martha Koutoumanou against her half-sister Maria-Elena and Alexandros Lykourezos, who sided with his daughter.

The jewels given by Martha Koutoumanou to Giorgos Tsangarakis for auction were valuable items that came into her possession after Zoe Laskari’s death in August 2017, following the division of the actress’s various assets.

These pieces include a double-strand pearl necklace of exceptional quality, white gold earrings adorned with emeralds, another pair of earrings, bracelets, and rings—all items that Zoe herself, affectionately called Zoitsa by her friends, had worn.

According to Giorgos Tsangarakis, their sentimental value increases due to photographs showing Zoe Laskari wearing them at various social events.

One such image prominently features the white gold earrings with green emeralds, worn by the theater and film star during a period when she had very short hair. These earrings were a small part of the impressive fortune accumulated by this remarkable woman, one of the first Greek actresses to pose for the Greek edition of Playboy.

The inheritance mainly went to her two daughters, who, a year after her death, became embroiled in a legal dispute that attracted significant attention. It echoed the lyrics from the Katsimihas Brothers’ song: “Nothing has changed, and yet nothing is as it was. But still, there remains a stubbornness…” However, as events unfolded, it became clear that this was more than mere stubbornness.

The Beginning of the Feud

This dispute, marked by legal notices and injunctions, lasted until 2020. After two years of family conflict over Zoe’s villa in Porto Rafti, Maria-Elena Lykourezou announced the end of the feud in an Instagram post.

“Everything passes, and everything is necessary. Even tensions… Even distances… Also, what is necessary is that people focus on their own lives. We deal exclusively with ours,” wrote the now 45-year-old, who works as a life coach.

The post included a photo of the two women smiling with Alexandros Lykourezos between them. He commented on the matter with six words: “The reconciliation brought me great joy.”

What Maria-Elena apparently did not grasp, as noted by those who knew her, was the public’s enduring interest in their lives as the daughters of a major star. Publicity followed them closely, particularly as they grew older and Maria-Elena’s brief marriage to Apostolos Gletsos—a union that lasted less than a month—dominated headlines.

Martha Koutoumanou, meanwhile, enjoyed years of happiness alongside the late Vlassis Bonatsos, with whom she had a daughter, Zenia. But his sudden death upended her life.

Both their mother and Alexandros Lykourezos were always there for the two girls during both joyful and challenging moments. However, Zoe’s death in the summer of 2017 appeared to disrupt the delicate balance overnight.

Months later, Martha and Maria-Elena grew apart. By 2018, a quiet rift over their mother’s inheritance began to surface.

This inheritance included the Porto Rafti villa, a theater, and a bank vault, according to media reports. Zoe had left no written will. As Alexandros Lykourezos later stated on a television show, “The division of everything was conducted calmly and harmoniously in my presence between Maria-Elena and Martha. It was done with absolute order and full agreement.”

Having renounced the inheritance, Lykourezos left the two sisters to accept their mother’s estate with the benefit of inventory. However, the co-ownership of the Porto Rafti villa led to a clash.

Debts needed to be paid, necessitating the villa’s sale. Though both sisters agreed on this, a video reportedly prepared by Maria-Elena to attract buyers became a contentious point. The footage was briefly listed on real estate websites before becoming a topic of lifestyle shows. Martha, who opposed the video, stated that she couldn’t hand over the house keys to anyone. Any serious buyer, she insisted, would need to coordinate with her.

The situation escalated dramatically in December 2018 when Martha Koutoumanou received the first legal notice from her half-sister Maria-Elena on December 10.

In it, Maria-Elena cited uncooperative behavior and communication difficulties with Martha, claiming that her actions were deterring potential buyers. She requested copies of the house keys.

Martha responded with her own legal notice, using a harsh tone to recount their last communication on October 24, 2017, when Maria-Elena had sent her the message: “I will say one final thing: From now on, you will speak with my father. That’s it.”

Subsequently, Martha Koutoumanou points out in the extrajudicial notice that the installments of a repair loan stopped being paid after their mother’s death, while she mentions the existence of an extrajudicial notice “from the management of the Apollonio complex, where the house is located, for unpaid communal fees exceeding 22,000 euros, which your father was supposed to pay and remain unpaid to this day.”

The appeal to the courts Even those unfamiliar with or who haven’t read about the family feud realized something was amiss on May 7, 2019, when Maria-Elena appeared on a television program.

Martha saw her on TV and heard, among many other things, her half-sister saying, “I feel alone… Martha and I generally don’t get along. We were never very close because we didn’t grow up in the same house. We are completely opposite, like black and white. My parents supported me, cared for me, and were there for me. My sister never did that for me.”

In early June 2019, “To Thema” revealed the conflict between the two sisters with the extrajudicial notices they had exchanged and the respective precautionary measures each had filed against the other.

When Alexandros Lykourezos commented on the matter on television, although he said that he had raised Martha with love from a young age, his words indicated that in the dispute that had arisen, he aligned with Maria-Elena’s position.

Perhaps, those who know him well say, he couldn’t have done otherwise, as maintaining a balancing role in a case that occupied television shows almost daily would have been challenging.

This stance became evident in November 2019 in court when he testified as a witness, stating, among other things: “There is a house in Porto Rafti, a maisonette where we lived with Zoe. The subject of the application is the property and a bank safe deposit box at Piraeus Bank. There are significant pressures from debts; a proper utilization of the property needed to happen. That hasn’t happened until today. The court has appointed Maria-Elena as the administrator.”

He then pointed out that Martha Koutoumanou resides in the maisonette, with whom no one—meaning himself and his daughter—could communicate. “The house belongs to both children, but there is an issue of communication,” he emphasized, adding that Martha should allow real estate agents access so that the maisonette could be sold.

He concluded by saying, “All attempts Maria-Elena Lykourezou made to send an agent over the past two years failed to find her. Her lawyers told me she doesn’t answer the phone. The house will be seized if the debts of their mother, which they inherited, are not paid.”

As expected, Martha Koutoumanou’s response, submitted immediately afterward, was strongly worded, fully opposing the allegations of the distinguished criminal lawyer. Specifically, regarding the breakdown of relations with her half-sister, she stressed, “She sent me a message saying I would have to talk to her lawyer. I kept it. I have been living in this house since my husband passed away.”

When asked by the court president if they argued, she replied that they didn’t have great relations, while revealing that Maria-Elena “had sent a message to my daughter before my mother died, saying, ‘When my parents die, you’ll see what will happen to you.’”

The reconciliation and life afterward Concerning the allegation that she changed the locks of the house, she emphasized that this was done only on two doors, the front and kitchen doors, as she didn’t have the financial means to replace all of them, adding, “I gave keys to the storage rooms, and she (referring to Maria-Elena) went and took everything. Clothes, furniture, suits. I no longer trusted her.”

The trial ended with the court president’s plea for the two sisters to reconcile, something that didn’t happen immediately, as their relationship was essentially nonexistent and it took almost eight months before they spoke again.

Since then, everything seemed to proceed, if not harmoniously, at least neutrally between the two sisters and their personal relationship, despite the absence of any shared photographs.

On Maria-Elena’s Instagram profile, there is also not a single photo with her half-sister, among the many with her mother and some with Alexandros Lykourezos.

The latter, with his statements about the jewelry issue earlier this week, seemed taken aback by the development, saying, “The Lykourezos family has absolutely no involvement in this matter and the auction. It is an issue that neither my daughter nor I are affected by. I have no idea who has given the jewelry. Presumably, if they belonged to Zoe, they might have been given by her daughter from her first marriage, Martha Koutoumanou. I haven’t had any communication with her.”

Words that, according to his close circle, indicate that what had been resolved four years ago with a reconciliation he had then expressed joy about has seemingly led again to a distancing from Martha Koutoumanou.

His daughter, Maria-Elena Lykourezou, is assumed to remain silent following her father’s statement on the auction of her mother’s nine pieces of jewelry by her half-sister.

In any case, the two reportedly never truly came close, despite their mother’s and Alexandros Lykourezos’s efforts.