On May 5, 2010, three days before the vote on the first memorandum, three employees of the Marfin bank on Stadiou Street—Angeliki Papathanassopoulou, who was pregnant with her first child, Epameinondas Tsakalis, and Paraskevi Zoulia—lost their lives in a fire caused by so-called “hooded” attackers.

The perpetrators had infiltrated the large protest gathering against the measures that had been announced a few days earlier. They threw Molotov cocktails even though there were employees inside the branch, and they knew that their actions were putting lives in immediate danger.

More than twenty people were inside the neoclassical building at the time of the arson attack—which proved to be fatal—with four of them losing their lives due to the fire caused by the killers’ Molotov cocktails. Sixteen years later, the perpetrators remain “hooded”: Anonymous, at large, and unpunished.

Despite initial optimism that the perpetrators would quickly be brought to justice, this has still not happened. Police officers of the Hellenic Police (ELAS), who are studying the evidence and data gathered both during the critical hours and in the investigation that followed, now conclude that four critical mistakes were made, which resulted in the investigation failing to reach a conclusion.

At the same time, the failure to arrest the perpetrators fueled theories that behind the attack were secret services or para-state mechanisms aiming to stop the protests and frighten public opinion.

The four gaps in the investigation:

Insufficient camera footage: Police collected material from security cameras only from a few shops next to the branch. Experienced officers told protothema.gr that this was a gap that cost the investigation dearly, as crucial evidence was lost. In such cases, authorities usually gather footage along the entire route of the suspects, in order to identify the moment when the perpetrator or perpetrators make a mistake or at least reveal a clue that advances the case. This was not done, and the State Security service did not even request footage from the metro station cameras.

The Marfin–Ianos mix-up: State Security sent to court individuals who had nothing to do with the Marfin arson, but were linked to the attack on the Ianos bookstore directly opposite, which occurred almost simultaneously. In simple terms, the officers involved failed to understand and document who participated in what, sending the case file in a completely wrong direction and giving the perpetrators additional time.

Lack of coordination among key services that could have assisted the investigation: The case file was handled by State Security, as ELAS believed the deadly attack was carried out by individuals from the anarchist milieu; however, there was no assistance from the Anti-Terrorism Unit at the investigative level, which could have helped collect vital evidence. Likewise, the National Intelligence Service (EYP-NIS), despite the fact that three people lost their lives in a protest due to criminal actions, did not play the role one might expect in the case, such as gathering information on individuals and their movements before and after the fatal arson.

Failure to lift phone confidentiality on the day of the attack: If the lifting of phone confidentiality had been requested for the critical hours before and after the deadly arson, State Security could, through analysis of mobile phone antennas, have determined who was where, either excluding individuals from suspicion or leading investigators to people not previously considered involved. Instead, the investigation proceeded blindly, with the known results.

Where are the perpetrators?
Sixteen years later, the perpetrators remain free, and for ELAS the case remains an open chapter that must be closed by bringing those responsible to justice.

According to the police, the Marfin arson attack was an organized plan by “hooded” individuals belonging to the so-called anarchist side, who—due to a chain of police errors—remain at large, with some attempting to distance themselves from the milieu that orchestrated the attack, and all of the actual perpetrators keeping silent.