Emotionally charged and deeply politicized, Maria Karystiannou delivered a powerful speech during an event held Saturday evening (July 5, 2025) in Ptolemaida regarding the tragedy in Tempi. Once again, Karystiannou launched a fierce attack, referring to a system of power that, as she emphasized, covers up those responsible for what happened in Tempi.
‘The last period has been unprecedented,’ she stated, adding, ‘showing’ the OPKEPE scandal: ‘Myriad scandals of criminal corruption follow one after another, with financial damage amounting to hundreds of millions of euros against the country, which we, the honest citizens, will pay for once again.’
She spoke about ‘a fleeting but important sense of justice felt thanks to the intervention of European prosecutors’: ‘We are witnessing live lessons in real justice—not from the Greek judiciary, but from European prosecutors. The prosecutor who decided to put an end to this impunity is for us an oasis in the desert, a source of inspiration and hope,’ she said pointedly.
Karystiannou denounced the removal of the European prosecutor from the Tempi investigation, saying: ‘Within just three months after the train collision and deadly explosion, they managed to temporarily remove her—let’s hope only temporarily—demanding that she no longer deal with the incident herself but leave it to the Greek judiciary… the same judiciary whose leadership is defined by the criminally accused perpetrators. How ironic!’
Finally, she described the Greek judiciary as ‘absent’ and referred to ‘mockery of investigative and judicial committees,’ while angrily commenting on the applause from Parliament for former Transport Minister Kostas A. Karamanlis. ‘We turned red with anger and shame when we saw the unethical applause from Parliament for the man responsible for the death of our children. That applause meant that corruption won.’