A Greek helicopter pilot who claimed he killed his British wife, Caroline Crouch, 20, in a fit of anger after a row that had “blurred” his senses, has been found guilty of murder at the end of a trial watched closely in Greece and abroad.
The seven-member mixed tribunal of judges and jurors concluded unanimously that Babis Anagnostopoulos was culpable of premeditated murder, of deliberately killing the family’s pet dog and of perverting the course of justice.
The UK-trained aviator, who attempted to cover up his wife’s murder as the result of a bungled break-in of their suburban Athens maisonette on 11 May last year – a fiction he maintained for nearly six weeks – was expressionless as the verdict was announced.
The tribunal ruled the 34-year old should receive the toughest penalty possible: a life sentence supplemented by a further jail term of eleven years and six months for the brutal killing of the dog and lying to authorities to pervert justice. A fine of €21,000 (£17,800) was also imposed.
At the request of the defendant’s lawyer the Athens court recessed to consider if mitigating circumstances, such as the good behaviour he has displayed in pre-trial detention in the high-security Korydallos prison, should be taken into account. But judges and jurors rejected the application.
Earlier on Monday the public prosecutor, Eugenia Stathopoulou, said all the facts pointed to the murder being cold-blooded and planned.
“He was in a calm psychological state … aware of his senseless brutality,” she said, before invoking a coroner’s report to reject the defence’s claim that Crouch had been awake at the time of her murder and that the crime had been provoked. “The facts are self-evident … and leave no doubt that he is responsible for the actions of which he has been accused.”
It was only fair, she said, that the helicopter pilot – the son of a civil engineer and school teacher – be put behind bars for life, the toughest penalty that can be meted out for crimes of such magnitude in Greece.
Anagnostopoulos, who met Crouch as a teenager on the island of Alonissos where she was raised, had argued the Briton was given to “outbursts of anger”, especially after giving birth to their daughter, Lydia.
In an effort to make the crime appear more credible he killed his wife’s adopted puppy and placed the 11-month-old child next to her dead mother’s body.
He then notified the police – allegedly making the emergency call with his nose – after binding his feet and hands with duct tape in a further attempt to make the robbery “by a gang of foreign thieves” seem more realistic.
“His aim was to confuse authorities and he won 37 days [of freedom],” the prosecutor said, before the court’s ruling. “If there is one common trait to all his crimes, it is that the accused underestimated the intelligence of others.”
The tribunal unanimously rejected Anagnostopoulos’s attempt to present the murder as a “crime of passion” that might have resulted in a reduced penalty.
Appealing for the maximum term possible before the verdict, Athanasios Haramis, the lawyer representing Crouch’s retired oil executive father and Filipina mother, described Anagnostopoulos as “a multitalented actor” who thought he had pulled off the “perfect crime” for which he remained shamelessly unrepentant.
“Caroline has now become a symbol in the struggle [to combat] domestic violence against women,” said Haramis, describing the trial as “historic” after the sentence was passed. “It was a revolting crime ... the punishment is justified.”
Greece has witnessed a surge in femicides whose violence has shocked the nation. Invariably, the murders have occurred as women have sought to end abusive relationships. In a diary, excerpts of which were read out in court, Crouch documented how her own marriage had become increasingly strained as the pilot sought to control her life. She was among 17 women in Greece to lose their lives at the hands of partners last year.
Stathopoulou told the court it was indisputable that Anagnostopoulos had suffocated his wife with a pillow while lying on top of her during an unprovoked attack while she was asleep.
