Regular readers may remember we reported the shooting and death a few weeks back of 52-year-old criminal lawyer Michalis Zafiropoulos. Now sadly it seems although the lawyer was targeted by Albanian criminals his death was actually accidental.
The Greek National Herald reports…
The two Albanians that shot and killed 52-year-old criminal lawyer Michalis Zafiropoulos 19 days ago had been hired to intimidate him into cooperating with a blackmail plan targeting one of the lawyer’s clients, police revealed on Wednesday. The two men were both wanted criminals, while the 32-year-old that actually pulled the trigger was an escaped convict who had failed to return to prison after furlough in September.
Presenting the findings of the police investigation, Police Major General Christos Papazafiris of the Attica Security police and Hellenic Police spokesman Theodoros Chronopoulos revealed that the pair, aged 32 and 30 years old, had received an advance of 3000 euros to coerce Zafiropoulos into cooperating, while their final fee had been set at 20,000 euros. They had been “rented” by three Albanians currently serving time in prison and their task was to persuade the lawyer to assist in an attempt to extort five million euros from a prisoner held in connection with the Energa case, whom Zafiropoulos was representing. The two men ended up shooting the lawyer instead, in what police believe was a largely accidental killing.
The revelations were made in the presence of Police Commissioner Constantinos Tsouvalas, who came down to the Attica police headquarters to express his satisfaction with the successful cracking of the case.
The 32-year-old arrested by Attica Police as the chief suspect for the shooting confessed to the murder on Tuesday, while his testimony shed further light on the reasons for the killing and how it came about.
Papazafiris said that authorities were charging three Albanian prison inmates aged 34, 35 and 40 years old, respectively, who are serving time for attempted homicides and other serious crimes, with morally instigating the murder and hiring the men that killed Zafiropoulos in an attempt to coerce him.
