The public prosecutor on the bench on Thursday called for the conviction of 12 of the 21 defendants in the repeat trial for the devastating Mati fire of 2018, in which 104 people lost their lives. Among them were senior officers in the fire department and top local government officials, including the then governor of Attica Rena Dourou.

The retrial was initiated by the public prosecutors' office after a primary court in 2024 acquitted all but six of those accused of mismanaging the disaster, letting them off with monetary fines.

Public prosecutor Stamatina Perimeni said that the then chief of the fire department Sotiris Terzoudis be found guilty for a series of omissions, including the diversion of a helicopter from Mati to a fire near the refineries in Attica, and for failing to assign a senior fire department officer to monitor the fire that started in Daou, Penteli, or to seek the assistance of other civil defence forces and the army, among others.

She also recommended a guilty verdict for the fire department's second-in-command, Vasilis Mattheopoulos, for failing to take appropriate actions to avert the loss of lives, and the commander of the fire brigade's operations centre Ioannis Fostieris, for not properly evaluating the information that was coming in regarding the fire and the danger this posed, as well as the diversion of the helicopter and not mobilising Chinook helicopters to operate in Mati.

Perimeni additionally sought a guilty verdict for the director of the 199 emergency services number Christos Golfinopoulos, for failing to evaluate the information from the public and diverting vehicles essential for fighting the fire to other locations, the chief of the Fire Department's Civil Protection Operation's Centre Philippos Panteleakos for not coordinating services and informing the public, and the three top officers of the local Nea Makri fire station, for not relaying information regarding the fire, and the Athens Fire Department Command chief.

The prosecutor also sought guilty verdicts for the former civil protection general secretary, Ioannis Kapakis, over his failure to act, former Attica governor Rena Dourou, saying she was responsible for civil protection and convening the relevant mechanisms, the mayor of Rafina-Pikermi Evangelos Bournous for failing to inform citizens and take civil protection measures and, finally, Penteli resident Konstantinos Aggelopoulos, at whose house the fire began.

Among those that she recommended be acquitted were the then mayor of Marathon Ilias Psinakis, his deputy mayors Vaios Thanasias and Antonis Palpatzis and former Penteli Mayor Dimitrios Stergios-Kapsalis, the pilot of the fire brigade helicopter Christos Lambris, the chief fire brigade aircraft fleet, Christos Portozoudis and EMAK commander Stefanos Kolokouris, as well as the deputy commander of the police aircraft Haralambos Syrogiannis.

In her analysis of the events that led to the disaster, Perimeni found that the leadership of the fire department failed to promptly evaluate the danger posed by the fire in an "area with a great history [of fires] and filled with people", diverting essential fire-fighting means and the helicopter away from Mati to assist with putting out a fire near the Motor Oil refineries.

While the refinery represented an important and high-risk facility, she noted, they should have prioritised saving people, especially as the refinery had its own fire safety system.

"Protection of the facility, of the infrastructure, prevailed over the protection of human life," she said, while noting that no one had stepped up to take charge of the area's evacuation, as well as the failure to seek the assistance of the coast guard for those who died at sea while fleeing the flames.