The trial of the nightclub doorman in Greece who has been charged with the fatal beating of a 20-year-old Australian tourist on the holiday island of Mykonos went on trial on Wednesday.

Marios Antonopoulos, 25, is charged with voluntary homicide over the July 2008 death of Doujon Zammit following an argument outside a nightclub, while three other Greek men have been charged as accessaries in the death.

George Chatzioannou and Dimitris Varonas have been charged as accessories to both murder and attempted murder. Bar owner Stamatis Daktylidis is charged with supplying the weapons used.

The trial opened Wednesday on the island of Levos after Greece’s Supreme Court on December 8 rejected an appeal by the criminal case defendant against a lower appeals court ruling indicting him on intentional homicide charges in the death of Zammit.

The nightclub bouncer accused of the murder of Maltese-Australian
Doujon Zammit has admitted injuring the 20-year-old but denied he
intended to kill him.

The trial was told that the four claimed they were policemen
when they stopped Doujon and his friends, lined them against a wall and
searched them, before beating them up. They had chased them out of a
disco after claims, since dismissed, of having stolen wallets and
handbags.

Present in court were the victim’s father Oliver and mother Rose and his two brothers, who flew to Greece for the court procedure, together with Costas Gribilas, who received Doujon’s heart in a transplant after the parents donated Doujon’s organs after the young man was declared clinically brain dead.

“We are putting our faith and trust in the Greek justice system and its lovely people who have supported us so far to send out the right message that this is not Greek behaviour that has been shown,” Oliver Zammit said, adding that the perpetrators must be punished.

Zammit’s lawyer Alexis Kouyias said his client was seeking murder convictions for all four defendants.

“Their position is that all four defendants were responsible for the boy’s death,” Kouyias said.

“We will use all the legal means necessary so that the court issues a verdict that corresponds to this position.”