Family and friends bid farewell to Antonis Kargiotis on Friday, as the 36-year-old was buried in his homeland of Ayios Nikolaos Lasithiou, Crete.
Kargiotis, one of ten siblings of a working-class family, fell victim to a brutal death, after being pushed back by crew members off a passenger ship in the port of Piraeus on Tuesday.
His funeral was attended by locals from the Workers’ Residences of Agios Nikolaos, with the neighbourhood plunged into mourning for the death of a beloved member.
Friends of the deceased arrived at the church and put up banners reading: “For Antonis, life was joy, unity, love, cooperation. For us what?” and “Right to Diversity.”
Kargiotis’ death was captured on video and widely shared on social media, sparking outrage throughout Greece.
Shipping Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis said on Wednesday that the man, who had bought a ticket, had boarded the ship before disembarking for unknown reasons and then tried to board again, which was when he was pushed back by crew members and fell into the sea just as the ship departed.
According to his relatives, the 36-year-old did not know how to swim.
“I feel shock and horror for what has happened,” Varvitsiotis told Parapolitika radio station. “The images are revealing and shocking. I also feel great sadness for the loss of the 36-year-old man.”
Varvitsiotis said on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “there is no doubt that the crime was homicide”. He added that four people have been detained over the incident, which is being investigated by a prosecutor.
The captain, the first mate, the deck officer and the boatswain had requested a deadline to appear before the Piraeus Prosecutor’s Office on Saturday.
Eyewitnesses aboard the F/B ELYROS, which was docked next to the Blue Horizon at the port of Piraeus, observed the harrowing incident firsthand.
A witness said that approximately 10 minutes after the man fell into the sea, she saw his lifeless body floating in the water.
“At that moment, I called the Coast Guard and made an anonymous report about the incident. ‘They pushed the man into the sea, and he drowned. They killed him,’ were the words I conveyed to the authorities,” the witness said.
In two separate statements on Wednesday, the ship’s owner Attica Group said that its management was “shocked by the tragic incident” and that it was cooperating with authorities to help shed light on the case.
“The scenes we all witnessed last night are unthinkable and do not conform with the group’s values,” it said, adding that the group was also investigating internally why “clear, defined procedures which must be strictly followed by the crews of all our ships were not followed.”
Βίντεο σοκ: Το πλήρωμα έσπρωξε από το Blue Horizon στον θάνατο τον 36χρονο που σκοτώθηκε στο λιμάνι Πειραιά pic.twitter.com/FdzFTliZLg
— kakajason (@kakajason50) September 5, 2023
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