Etiket trial of six

Niyazi Dalyancı The Supreme Court of Greece decided to reopen an 88-year old case which had resulted with the execution of six politicians and army commanders found responsible for what the Greeks term as the “Great Catastrophe,” that is the defeat of the Greek armies by the Kemalist forces in Asia Minor in 1922. The court decided to reopen the case upon a request by Michalis Protopapadakis, the grandson of Petros Protopapadakis, the prime minister of Greece who faced the firing squad on 15 November 1922 along with five others. “My grandfather was not a traitor,” Michalis Protopapadakis told the Greek media. He claimed that there was new evidence indicating that the accused were innocent. Protopapadakis mentioned a telegram by Eleftherios Venizelos demanding the suspension of executions, that arrived in Athens 14 hours after the death sentences were carried out. In November, last year, the Penal Department of the Greek Supreme Court discussed the demand by Protopapadakis and decided by 3 votes against 2 to take the case to the Plenary Session. In an in camera session, the General Assembly of the Supreme Court voted in favor of a rehearing of the case known as the Trial of the Six. Historical Background Events that unraveled in the opposite shores of the Aegean after the Turkish armies entered Izmir on 9 September 1922 are little known in Turkey. As the Greek forces evacuated Izmir, hundreds of thousands of Anatolian Greeks had massed in the port, hoping to board a vessel that would take them to Greece. Then the city went up in flames creating mayhem for the refugees. The exact number of those who perished during the evacuation is still not known. As the Greek army retreated, a group of officers headed by colonels Nikolaos Plastiras and Stylianos Gonatas on the […]