Galery

1

A drama reminiscent of that in Kostalexi has been disclosed in the Athens district of Kallithea (in 1978, in Kostalexi village in Lamia municipality, the police found in the basement of a house a young woman held there by her family over the course of 29 years for having an affair with the local teacher). Now a new horrifying case has been revealed - a woman, aged 36, experienced a nightmare in the hands of people who, instead of taking care of her, had closed her up in her own house and tortured her for years.

She is Maria Papadopoulou who is disabled and remained without parents, she was saved due to the intervention of neighbours, and she has been undergoing hospital treatment since July. The young woman lost her left leg because of the torture.

According to "Ethnos" newspaper, the young woman had become the victim of a Pontic Greek woman, aged 77, who had taken care of her in recent years and of her 50-year-old relative. They did not hesitate to seize the property of the 36-year-old victim and receive her pension to the amount of 1,200 euro a month as well as to turn her life into a nightmare.

The two tormentors kept Maria on an internal balcony without food and water, with a broken leg strapped to a stick, like a tethered animal, allowing her leg to rot because the woman did not move it for a long time. The outcome would have been fatal if the neighbours from the building in Kallithea neighbourhood where the nightmare was taking place had not ultimately intervened. They informed the health authorities and then approached the prosecutor’s office that initiated pre-trial proceedings for attempted murder against the 77-year-old woman and her 50-year-old relative, and issued a warrant for their arrest.

An investigation is underway to determine under what conditions Maria’s flat had ended up in the hands of the 77-year-old woman. According to the contract, Maria Papadopoulou had given it as a present in 2008, retaining ownership of it, "as a token of love to the woman as she has been taking care of me like a mother." Elsewhere the contract mentions that Maria "waives any right to withdraw the donation for any reason, recognizing that it is made by a high moral duty."

"I want to go home but I'm afraid. They beat me there. They did not give me water in order for me not to urinate and make a mess continuously. She does not love me. I want another woman to take care of me," says Maria from the hospital where she often asks for Yoanna, the neighbour who helped her.

The young woman who is confined to her bed remembers her grandmother, whose death was the cause for her attempt to put an end to her life by jumping from the first floor, thus remaining disabled. Her mother entrusted her to the care of the 77-year-old woman while she worked but the former died in 2006 and Maria remained alone, entirely dependent on the woman who moved into her flat.

At the hospital, the young woman is in the company of Yoanna, her neighbour, who says, "I have known her since she was a child. She was shy and silent. We were calm because the woman who continued to care for her after her mother died looked very good. She was kind to her and she was taking care of her, a social worker often came as well, until one day they suddenly took Maria, along with her ​​bed, outside, onto the balcony, and we could not see her. They hung up sheets. When we asked her what was going on, she said, ‘they took me outside because I smelled bad.’ What happened afterwards cannot be described," says the neighbour.