Extradited (3 page)

A student faces an extradition hearing over the death of an eighteenyear-old roller-hockey player on holiday in Greece.

Andrew Symeou, 19, was arrested over the death of Jonathan Hiles from Cardiff, who died after an incident at a nightclub on Zakynthos in July 2007.

The Bournemouth University student, of Enfield, north London, was remanded on bail by Westminster magistrates.

He was bailed to return to the same court on 7 July, when a decision will be taken on extraditing him to Greece.

The student was arrested by the Metropolitan Police extradition unit on suspicion of manslaughter at his family home on Thursday night after a European arrest warrant was issued by Greek authorities.

His passport was also seized by police.

Mr Hiles, from Llandaff North, Cardiff, was with friends on Zakynthos when he was injured.

He was taken to hospital in Athens where he died on 22 July 2007.

Mr Symeou was given bail after his mother, Helen, pledged surety of £20,000 for him.

Under the bail conditions he must reside at the family home until he next appears in court.

I wasn’t in a good way when I arrived home; I was hysterical – and I’d made it even worse by searching for the case online. The first thing I found was the BBC News article. It felt like my heart had stopped as soon as I saw my name written in the piece.
I could hardly breathe. I’d always read articles about deaths or murders in the news, but the people involved in those cases were just random names and a story that I couldn’t relate to. Suddenly I’d become one of the people that others would read about, and I had absolutely no clue about what had happened to Jonathan Hiles. I’d never even met him! I couldn’t process any of it as reality. This was the first moment since my arrest that the thought had dawned on me:
people would think I was a murderer
. I took a deep breath in a fluster of panic, then closed my laptop and lay on my bed for a few moments. My mind was cluttered with one prevailing thought:
my life is ruined
. Burying my face into my hands, I felt like I was about to have a breakdown.

It seemed as though my mobile phone was ringing and vibrating non-stop, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone. The person I needed to talk to was Riya – I finally calmed myself down and called her. I’d put it off because I knew how emotional it would be, but I had delayed for long enough. She was away on a field trip for university at the time, and was in her hotel room when I called. When she answered the phone she cried bitterly. Neither of us could have imagined that we’d ever have such a conversation.

She wasn’t coming back to London until the evening, so I had to wait to see her. I missed the comforting way she’d always look up at me with sparkling eyes because she was almost a foot shorter – petite.

It wasn’t long before my house was jam-packed with family and friends. In times of crisis, Cypriot people tend to eat! Several had brought huge plates of food, as though they’d pre-empted the mass of loved ones that would come to support us. The doorbell kept on ringing and I was showered with emotional hugs and kisses from friends and relatives. I had no idea how incredibly caring and helpful everyone would be. It was overwhelming and gave my family great strength.

After a couple of hours my godfather Lef called for a meeting in the conservatory. Everyone crowded around. There weren’t enough chairs for everyone to sit down, so most people were standing and waiting to find out what he had to say. He took it upon himself to hang a large whiteboard on the wall. With a marker he wrote ‘
JUSTICE FOR SYMEOU: BRAINSTORM
’ in big letters.

‘Guys and girls, we’re starting a campaign and this is what it’s gonna be called. We need everybody’s help, even the young ones,’ he bellowed.

He started to list objectives, like
‘create a website’, ‘start a petition’ and ‘find the best legal team’.
Those in the room began to throw around ideas of how to fight against my extradition to Greece. I wasn’t aware of it yet, but if extradited, I could have been facing up to eighteen months in prison on remand before a trial! We needed to prove my innocence in the UK.

I sat in silence as everyone around me started to brainstorm. It was proposed that we would create awareness on social media and bombard politicians with letters. Someone had the idea that we should upload a skeleton letter on the internet for anyone to access and send to their local MPs and MEPs.

Lef’s deep voice continued to resonate in the room.

Some of my friends chuckled at Lef’s exaggerated demand for thousands of protesters in the hallways and lifts of Westminster Magistrates’ Court. I couldn’t find it remotely funny; I was devastated and still couldn’t begin to accept it all as reality. It sounded like we would be making such a fuss and I had no say in the decision as to whether we should campaign and protest. At only nineteen years old, I was vulnerable and everyone around me told me that it was the best thing to do. It’s an awful feeling when you have absolutely no control over your own destiny.

A couple of days later, my mum had a long telephone conversation with our then Labour MP, Joan Ryan, looking for some advice – but Joan was of the opinion that my extradition was inevitable. I’d been issued with a European Arrest Warrant and, apparently, they were extremely difficult for a British court to refute. My mum attempted to convince her why we should fight against it and why an investigation in the UK was necessary. Greek courts are notorious for their delays and I was facing up to a year and a half behind bars before even seeing a courtroom. We weren’t attempting to prevent justice by fighting the extradition – we were trying to prevent a huge injustice! Of course I wouldn’t hand myself over and serve an unnecessary prison sentence! I couldn’t even bear to hear the word ‘prison’ – it was a chilling thought. I could prove my innocence and that the evidence against me was borne out of police brutality. A competent investigation would have exonerated me, placing me in another nightclub at the time of the alleged attack. We had nothing to hide at all – we desperately needed the British authorities to look into the case.

My mum also spoke to the detective sergeant of Scotland Yard’s extradition unit. He said that legally they were unable to investigate unless the Greek authorities applied for Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA), which is an official submission to the requesting state in order to help in the investigation. We later lobbied the Greek authorities through our MP, MEPs and the charity Fair Trials International, asking that MLA be applied for. My mum asked the detective sergeant if there was any more advice that he could give us in regard to moving forward. He told her that barristers with no extradition experience aren’t taken seriously. Taking his advice, my parents set up a meeting with barrister John Jones of Doughty Street Chambers.

Prior to the dreaded court hearing on 7 July, our dining room looked like a solicitor’s office. My cousin Andrew, friend Sophia and my godsister Maria were all either in-between jobs or had just graduated from university and the three of them had given up hours of their time to help. They had jokingly nicknamed themselves the ‘Bum Squad’, but they weren’t ‘bums’ at all – they worked long and hard to help my family. I remember them on their laptops sending emails and on the phone pushing for support from various organisations. They hunted for the best legal representation and tried to gain as much publicity as possible.

Thanks to their help and my parent’s efforts, the campaign was gaining more awareness than we’d pre-empted. Sophia made a Facebook group, which invited all members to the protest on 7 July. Group numbers were growing by the hour, with over 1,000 people having joined in the first few days alone. It gave the links to the website and to an online petition that our friend Nick had set up. Hundreds of people began to sign it, most of whom I didn’t even know.

I wrote a statement for the website, whereby I sent my deepest sympathies to the family of the victim. I felt sick knowing that
a family could believe that I had killed their son. I couldn’t even begin to put myself in their shoes, but I had no choice but to defend my innocence against the injustice. Pre-trial detention in a foreign land wasn’t an option.

Other than the website statement, I had no other input towards the campaign. I was emotionally exhausted, really depressed about it and finding it difficult to cope. The campaign was being built around me and I was rarely told what was going on. I just sat on my backside in my own little depressed world at the top of the garden, smoking and eating my worries away. It seemed to be the only way for me to escape.

I was easily distracted too, because my house was usually packed with family and friends, many of whom brought food. Sometimes there would be so much food in my house that we could have set up a restaurant. Every day our kitchen island unit was covered with a variety of different dishes, like Cypriot oven-baked macaroni, meaty casseroles and soul-warming homemade soups. Italian friends of ours would bring cheesy pizzas and mouth-watering pasta bakes. I must have put on at least 10lbs within the first week, but I really didn’t care!

On the day of the meeting with barrister John Jones, it felt almost surreal as I stepped out of my front door – it was the first time that I’d left the house in eight days. On the way to Russell Square in town, I remember sitting on the London Underground with an unsettled, queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was overwhelmed with anxiety just being out in public.

Doughty Street consisted of rows of tall and narrow Georgian terraced houses – most of which had probably been converted into offices. As I entered the chambers I noticed that the building’s depth gave the illusion that it never ended. I felt out of my comfort zone as I sat at the oval wooden table in one of the boardrooms. Pouring myself a glass of water, I explained to John
Jones what I knew about the case against me in Greece. We hardly knew anything at the time; we were aware only of the two false statements that were beaten out of Chris and Charlie.

John insisted that we hire a Greek lawyer and retrieve the investigating case file from Zante. My dad told John that someone had recommended George Pyromallis – a Greek lawyer based in Athens who John also happened to know.

I explained to John that we had photographs from several different sources, all showing me in a different place on the night of the attack. There were also several witnesses who had been with me, a few of whom were girls that weren’t part of my immediate circle of friends. It was at this point that we learned that
no evidence
was to be considered in the extradition appeal! When issued with a European Arrest Warrant, a British court has no power to prevent an extradition based on evidence of innocence.

My entire body froze as soon as I heard about what we were up against. I didn’t want it to be true. If it went to Greece I’d be facing prison on remand, but I wasn’t allowed to prove my innocence first. I wasn’t even a witness to the attack, for God’s sake! It felt like I was being gagged and suffocated.

There had to be something that we could do to stop it from happening. John explained that we were limited to only a few articles of law upon which we could base our case. The truth was on our side – but the law upon which we could base our case. The European Arrest Warrant meant that the battle was going to be almost impossible to win.

E
ver since I’d discovered what the European Arrest Warrant was, there was an anxiety in my chest that wouldn’t go away. I had absolutely no control! The only thing that comforted me was the knowledge that my family and friends were doing absolutely everything in their power to prevent the injustice.

The online petition was growing by the hour. We had far more support than I ever thought we would – and for that I was grateful beyond words. People I knew showed their support in different ways, and even a text message or an email was appreciated greatly. Some people who I hadn’t spoken to in a long time had called me to ask how my family and I were doing. Some friends would text me, not even mention what was happening and just ask how I was. It was a delicate subject to broach; I guess it isn’t every day that somebody you know stands accused of killing someone. The one thing I didn’t appreciate was the very few people I’d had no contact with for many years who called, not to ask how we were, but to find out if the rumour was true. Some even wanted to know if I ‘did it’, almost as though they needed confirmation so they could then gossip with their friends about me, not knowing all the facts.

A week had passed and arguments began to form over the internet. Friends of the victim began to post obnoxious messages on our
Facebook group for the campaign. I’d read things like
‘Andrew is a scumbag who deserves to go to prison’, ‘He’s going to go to Greece kicking and screaming’
and
‘Anyone in this group is a scum-supporting idiot!’
One person even wrote that I had a ‘sickening face’. My friend Sophia disabled the facility to post messages on the Facebook group before it got too out of hand. I don’t know why I even bothered to read them, because being aware that there were a group of people who hated me in Wales added to the depression that I was already trying to deal with. It wasn’t me they really hated – it was the thug who’d taken their friend away from them forever. It was clear that many of them wanted me to go to prison before even being tried! The possibility of me being innocent was something that they’d failed to consider, regardless of the lack of information that they had. Friends of mine would reply in an attempt to defend me – but there was no point in arguing with those who could never be reasoned with. Thanks to a group of corrupt Greek officers and two scared eighteen-year-old boys, my face represented their friend’s alleged killer.

As usual, my house was full of people. My cousin Andreas brought his Nintendo Wii video-game console round for everyone to play. As I walked into the conservatory he was teaching our gran, Yiayia Nitsa, how to play a virtual tennis game. I remember us all being completely shocked at how good she was at it – she was a natural. I drew strength from seeing her smile; it was unlike the emotional greeting we’d had the previous day when she’d arrived from Cyprus.

I turned to my left and saw my dad speaking on the telephone. His face looked pale and drained.

‘Who’s Dad on the phone to?’ I asked my mum.

Her eyes looked absolutely exhausted as she sat on the sofa holding a cup of tea. ‘George Pyromallis, the Greek lawyer.’

I waited in anticipation for the phone call to end so I could hear what George had said about the case file.

My dad eventually put the telephone down. ‘It took George
a while, but he finally met with the investigating magistrate in Zante. He has the file now.’

‘And…’ I needed him to elaborate.

‘And, at a glance, he can already see huge anomalies.’

Two days before the hearing and protest, George Pyromallis had flown to London to meet us in John Jones’s office. When we walked into the boardroom, a tall, dark-complexioned man in his early forties stood up to shake my hand. He was suited with neat, short hair and spoke in perfect English with a slight Greek accent. We all shook hands with John Jones and our solicitor before sitting down and discussing the case file.

Before Chris Kyriacou and Charlie Klitou were forced to sign statements implicating me in the crime, five friends of Jonathan Hiles had also signed statements with the Zante police. Three of them, Mark O’Gorman, Christopher Paglionico and Lee Burgess had all signed statements that were word-for-word identical, describing the events that led up to the attack. These statements describe the assailant as having a muscular build with short, dark brown hair.

Although I have always had short, brown hair, I wasn’t muscular at all – I was very chubby. The statements did not describe my appearance. Secondly, these statements claimed to be taken by different officers, on different days, at completely different times. The statements were
word-for-word
identical, so it would be highly improbable for that to be true.

Another of Hiles’s friends, Robert Hares, admitted that he did not see the punch. Yet another, Jason Mordecai, signed a statement describing the perpetrator as a tall, blond male with a heavy northern English accent who had many spots on his face.

As soon as my friends Chris and Charlie were forced to sign
statements implicating me as the assailant,
all five
of Jonathan Hiles’s friends signed additional statements for the Zante police investigation. These five statements were, again, word-for-word identical, also claiming to be taken by different police officers at different times. George translated this statement for us. It said:

My facial hair was extremely distinctive and I could prove that I’d never shaved it off. There were pictures from my sister’s graduation, which had been taken two days after I’d returned from Zante, and my facial hair was far too thick to have grown back after being shaved on the day of the alleged attack.

George told us that the police mentioned there being CCTV footage showing me as the attacker – but there was no sign of it in the case file. This would have been amazing, as CCTV data would have shown a different person throwing the punch. But George feared that it didn’t even exist.

The investigation was a mishmash of unreliable information and it was clear that not all of the content had come out of the individuals’ mouths. The family of the victim had lost their son in a violent attack and were entitled to a competent investigation, but this wasn’t an investigation at all, it was a witch-hunt. The officers had beaten two eighteen-year-old boys, forced them to sign something that was untrue and then fabricated statements to implicate a random man from a photograph – one that wasn’t even taken on the same night.