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Halvagis feels ‘lack of justice’

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George Halvagis. Peter Dupas retrial.

Mersina Halvagis’ father George Halvagis makes his way from the Supreme Court of Appeal in Melbourne, Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009, after Peter Dupas was granted a re-trial on a technicality from the original trial. Photo:AAP Image/Julian Smith

21 Sep 2009
Alexandros Logothetis

The father of murder victim Mersina Halvagis was devastated and irreconcilable last Thursday after hearing the decision of the Court of Appeal that the alleged killer of his daughter will be retried for the case.

Mersina Halvagis was stabbed to death in 1998 while visiting her grandmother’s grave at Fawkner Cemetery.

Peter Dupas, 56, had been convicted of the murder in 2007.

His lawyers, however, filed an appeal on the grounds that certain identification evidence should never have been presented to the jury and additionally the judge should have instructed the jury differently on other issues.

The Court of Appeal with two votes to one decided Thursday to grant the motion for a new trial.

“At this moment I can not express how I feel, the only thing I can say is that the system is putting us on trial and nobody else. The criminal has a lot of rights to be going back and forth in the courts wasting taxpayers money,” Mersinas’ father George Halvagis said speaking exclusively in a phone interview to Neos Kosmos English Edition.

Mr Halvagis expressed his frustration with the “lack of justice” which he noted characteristically will subject his family to the agonizing procedure of a new trial.

The murder of the Halvagis’ beloved daughter by Peter Dupas has left an eternal scar. A date for the new trial has not been set yet and when asked about his feelings on the new trial, the father of Mersina Halvagis said: “I don’t know what to say it could take 6 months it could take 3 years. The only thing I know is that for the last 12 years we’ve been in a morass and who knows what’s going to happen now.”

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