Sotiris Terzoudis

A court in Athens convicted five former senior firefighting and disaster response officials on Monday, over a 2018 wildfire outside the capital that killed more than 100 people.

The fire that swept through the seaside town of Mati, east of Athens, was the deadliest in the country's history. Residents and vacationers, many trapped in their cars, were killed as they tried to escape.

A prosecutor on Tuesday asked for guilty verdicts for nine of the 21 defendants in the trial regarding the response to the deadly fire that ripped through the East Attica town of Mati in July 2018, claiming 104 lives. 

The former chief of the Greek Fire Service, Sotiris Terzoudis, confirmed on Thursday the testimonies of dozens of witnesses and a fire brigade expert that the former SYRIZA government knew, contrary to what it claimed, early on about the mounting death toll from the devastating wildfires in the seaside resort of Mati in eastern Attica in 2018, which claimed 104 lives.

Following seven months of investigations into the deadly fires that killed 100 people and destroyed parts of eastern Attica last July, prosecutors on Tuesday brought charges of negligent arson, negligent manslaughter and grievous bodily harm through negligence against 20 current and former state officials.

Following seven months of investigations into the deadly fires that killed 100 people and destroyed parts of eastern Attica last July, prosecutors on Tuesday brought charges of negligent arson, negligent manslaughter and grievous bodily harm through negligence against 20 current and former state officials.

The war of words between the government and opposition conservatives continued on Tuesday with New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis calling out Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras over the fact that no one has resigned over last week's deadly wildfires.