Galery

2

1

The only emergency exit of the branch of the bank Μarfin on Blvd Stadiu was locked and the remote control for unlocking it has been lost. Employees while trying to escape from the Molotof bank set on fire by bombs, found themselves trapped in an armored cage. The tragedy would be enormous, if another exit door was closed because fresh air was coming through it in the room of the toilet!

These are part of the findings of the report of the Ministry of Employment, where are written details about the fire in the branch of the bank Μarfin, which was caused by a group of anarchists on May 5, 2010. Then tragically died Angeliki Papatanasopoulou, Paraskevi Zulya and Epaminondas Tsakalis. In the report, which was written by Theodoros Pandazopoulos and published by Vima newspaper, is noted that the building was not well secured in case of fire, the emergency exits were locked, certificates lack and the employees were not trained.

As it is written "there were a total of 27 people working in the office. There was one emergency exit which was located on the ground floor of the building – right next to the main entrance. But it was not used by the employees because on the ground floor started a fire and they were choking from the smoke." But this is not the only problem.

Mr. Pandazopoulos stresses that: "The workers noted that the emergency exit on the ground floor, which was not supposed to be locked in order to open easily and on the spot by anybody who wanted to use it. But it was opening only if someone presses the panic button on the door while pressing the button on the remote control, which was only one for the entire room and was located in the desk of the director on the ground floor. At the time of the incident and with all the smoke it would be very difficult or even impossible to find the remote control and use it at the same time with pushing the door to open the emergency exit. Also there are witnesses who say that the desk of the director was the first thing that was set on fire, which means that the remote control was destroyed."

In the are alsoreport described the conditions under which the three officers were killed and how they tried to save the others. "A total of 14 people have come out through a metal gate, on the 2^nd floor, which was not an emergency exit and was accidentally opened to ventilate the room of the toilet because of problems in the sewer" it is written.

One of the main reasons for the entrapment of the employees according to the report is the lack of certificate that the building meets all requirements for safety in case of fire. For such a certificate to be granted it was necessary to make a report on the allocation of the rooms, to propose the necessary measures for fire extinguishing, described by the law. Subsequently, this report must be approved by the Fire Service and then the employer should call the fire department to check if everything is as it should be.

In the report is also stated that employees were not trained how to act in case of fire. Only one of them remembers that at some point of time they were shown how to use the fire extinguishers, and another one that they were handed out leaflets in which there were indications how to proceed if the building caught on fire.

As in regards to the detection of the offenders, it is evident that the police is in a dead end. Therefore it is possible to extend the deadline for completion of the case to November 5, 2010 During the investigation were questioned 60 witnesses and images from 20 cameras of nearby shops and monitoring traffic were taken into account. Officers have reached to five youths, whose identity has been detected - four boys and one girl who participated in the attacks of the bank before and after it was set on fire, but there are not enough evidence to press charges on them.