Greeks come out in support of Georgian falsely accused of murder

The Greek media and public have come out in support of 36-year-old Georgian Giorgi Khardzeishvili who was detained in Greece almost two months ago on suspicion of the murder of a young woman and who later turned out to be innocent.

• Georgian suspected of murdering woman in Greece turns out to be innocent

Khardzeishvili, the former suspect in the case of the murder of 20-year-old British citizen Caroline Crouch, is now accusing the Greek police of torturing him to confess to a crime that he did not commit, however the Greek police denies the accusation. 

Five-six men came in every day and beat me to plead guilty... I was tied to a chair for four days. They hit me very hard, I got dizzy, when one got tired, another started hitting. There were many.... And they simply said, ‘Tell me, how did you kill, how did you get in, how did you get out?’ There were no other questions", Khardzeishvili told Georgian media. 

Well-known Greek journalist Elena Akrita thanked Khardzeishvili for not confessing to the crime. Otherwise, she said, Crouch’s husband, Charalambos Anagnostopoulos, the man responsible for her murder, would have gotten away innocent. 

In order to deflect suspicion from himself, Anagnostopoulos told police about an alleged robbery by an ethnic Georgian.

If the Georgian had been beaten and had confessed to Caroline's murder, everything would have been in place. Anagnostopoulos would have continued to be the crooked happy husband, the good boy ... [Michalis] Chrysochoidis [Minister of Citizen Protection of Greece] would have given another blow to crime and Greek society would have been relieved that another evil foreigner is in prison. Thank you, unfortunate Georgian", she wrote on her Facebook post.

Greek media reports that former Minister of Infrastructure and MP Christos Spirtzis said that police were quick to blame a foreigner for the ‘heinous crime’. 

Very important questions arise both about the methods used by the Greek police, and about the expediency of trying to extract the confession from an innocent man,” Spirtzis said.

The Georgian diaspora in Greece, which has been monitoring the processes since the day of Khardzeishvili's arrest, demands an objective investigation into the claims of torture.

The killing of Crouch has shaken Greece, with national TV even interrupting coverage of the Euro 2020 football championships last week to broadcast details of the confession of Anagnostopoulos.

Khardzeishvili was arrested on May 11, the same day when the murder happened, on the Greek-Bulgarian border while trying to leave the country with a fake passport. He was taken to Koridallos prison, where he has been held since then. 

Despite his innocence in the case of the brutal murder of Crouch, Khardzeishvili is still in custody on other charges, which he also categorically denies.

His lawyer says there is no evidence to keep him in jail.