An emotionally charged and deeply politicized speech was delivered by Maria Karystiyanou at an event held Saturday evening (05.07.2025) in Ptolemaida, commemorating the tragedy in Tempi. Once again, Karystiyanou launched a fierce attack, referring to a power system that, as she emphasized, conceals those responsible for what happened in Tempi.
‘The recent period has been witness to an unprecedented situation,’ she stated, adding while pointing to the OPEKEPE scandal: ‘Myriads of scandals involving criminal corruption follow one after another, causing hundreds of millions of euros in economic damage to the country—damages we, the honest citizens, will once again be forced to pay.’
She spoke about ‘a fleeting yet significant 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 a stop to this impunity is for us an oasis in the desert, a source of inspiration and hope,’ she said pointedly.
Karystiyanou condemned the removal of the European prosecutor from the Tempi investigation, stating: ‘Within just three months of 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 matter herself, but leave it to the Greek judiciary… the very same judiciary whose leadership is defined by criminally liable perpetrators. How paradoxical!’
Finally, she described the Greek judiciary as ‘absent’ and referred to ‘mockery of investigative and judicial committees,’ angrily commenting on the applause from Parliament for former Minister of Transport, Kostas A. Karamanlis. ‘We turned red with anger and shame when we saw the unethical applause of Parliament for the man responsible for the deaths of our children. That applause meant that corruption had won.’