With this name, the trial of the perpetrators of the Asia Minor Catastrophe by an extraordinary military court, set up by the Venezuelan officers of the 1922 Revolution, went down in history.
Seven politicians and one military man sat on the bench, six of whom were sentenced to death and executed. The trial was held from 31 October to 15 November 1922 in the specially arranged meeting room of the Parliament (Old Parliament). It was one of the most dramatic episodes of the National Division.
After the Asia Minor Catastrophe and while Greece presented an image of disintegration, a military movement took place under the colonels Plastiras and Gonatas and vice-captain Fokas, which caused the resignation of the government of Triantafyllakos and King Constantine (September 14, 1922) in favor of the son of George II. His character was based on the need to believe that "the Greek army was not defeated, but betrayed".
As SanSimera writes, a Revolutionary Committee was set up in Athens, which took immediate action, ordering widespread arrests of anti-Venezuelan politicians, under the pressure of public opinion. A massive demonstration of 100,000 people in Syntagma Square on October 9 calls for the execution of those responsible for the tragedy. Plastiras, who is the undisputed leader of the movement, is in a difficult position.
The intransigent in the army (Pagalos, Othonaios, Hatzikyriakos), but also Alexandros Papanastasiou, demand executions. The moderates (Plastiras, Daglis, Gonatas) want a normal trial, as do the great Powers of Europe, who ask Plastiras to avoid hasty actions and summary procedures. Finally, the two sides compromised and it was decided to establish an emergency military court, which by its nature does not provide the guarantees for a fair trial.
The investigative committee was headed by the hard-line Lieutenant General Theodoros Pangalos, with the assistants of Colonels Ioannis Kalogera and Charalambos Loufa. In the Commission's conclusion, issued on October 24, eight persons who played a leading role in the period 1920 - 1922 were referred to be tried in the extraordinary military court on the charge of high treason:
- Dimitrios Gounaris (59 years old, former Prime Minister)
- Petros Protopapadakis (68 years old, former Prime Minister)
- Nicolaos Stratos (50 years old, former Prime Minister)
- Nikolaos Theotokis (44 years old, Minister of Military Affairs in the Protopapadakis government)
- Georgios Baltatzis (56 years old, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the governments of Gounari and Protopapadakis)
- Xenophon Stratigos, lieutenant general e.a. (53 years old, Minister of Transport in the Gounari government)
- Michael Goudas, rear admiral e.a. (54 years old, Minister of the Interior in the Gounari government)
- Georgios Hatzanestis, lieutenant general (59 years old, Commander-in-Chief of Asia Minor and Thrace)
The just request of the defendants to be tried by the Special Court pursuant to the Ministerial Liability Act was rejected by Pagalos with an extra-legal justification. Three days earlier (October 21) the extraordinary court-martial was set up with Major General Alexandros Othonaios as president.
Hadzianesti's apology
At 9 am on October 31, 1922, the hearing began in the meeting room of the Parliament (Old Parliament). The president of Alexandros Othonaios was flanked as military judges by three colonels, a captain, a lieutenant colonel, two vice captains, three majors, a captain and a military judicial adviser. Revolutionary commissioners were the Supreme Court prosecutor Konstantinos Georgiadis and colonels Ioannis Zouridis and Neokosmos Grigoriadis. The secretary of the court was Ioannis Peponis. Prominent lawyers (Konstantinos Tsoukalas, Anastasios Papaligouras, Oikonomidis, Doukakis, Notaras, Romanos and Sotiriadis) took up the defense of the accused.
The trial was held in 14 sessions. After the objections of the defendants were rejected, 12 witnesses for the prosecution and 12 for the defense were examined. The success of the prosecution was that most of the prosecution witnesses came from the anti-Venezuelan camp, as did the accused. On November 6, the defendant Dimitrios Gounaris fell seriously ill with typhus and was transferred to a private clinic. He submitted a request for an adjournment of the trial, which was rejected and thus he was being tried as of now.
There was a common belief in Greece and abroad that the court would impose death sentences. International pressure in favor of the accused is intensifying. Under their weight, the government of the moderate Sotiriou Krokidas resigns on November 10, and colonel Stylianos Gonatas, a leading member of the military movement, takes over as prime minister on November 14.
On the same day, the apologies of the accused and the purchases of the defense lawyers were completed. At a quarter past midnight on November 15, the court retires into conference to deliver its verdict. At 6:40 am the military judges return to the seat and the President of the Extraordinary Military Court, Alexandros Othonaios, reads the verdict of the court:
In the name of the King of the Greeks, George II, the Extraordinary Military Court, convened according to law, declares unanimously that George Hatzianes, Dimitrios Gounarin, Nikolaon Straton, Petron Protopapadaki, Georgion Baltatzin and Nikolaon Theotokin be sentenced to Death. Michael Gouda and Xenophon Stratigon are sentenced to life imprisonment.
Orders the military dismissal of George Hatzanestis, general, Xenophons General, lieutenant general, and Michael Gouda, rear admiral, and imposes costs and fees on them.
He unanimously awards monetary compensation in favor of the State against Dimitrios Gounaris of 200 thousand drachmas, Nikolaos Stratos of 335 thousand drachmas, Georgios Baltatzis and Nikolaos Theotokis of 1 million drachmas and Michael Gouda of 200 thousand drachmas.
Immediately after, the revolutionary commissioner Neokosmos Grigoriadis goes to the Averof prison, where the defendants were held, and announces the sentencing decision. It's 9 in the morning. He announces to the six death row inmates that the execution will take place in two hours. Submission of remedies was not foreseen for the convicted. At 10:30 two trucks pick them up and take them to the execution site in Goudi, behind the "Sotiria" hospital. An hour later, 36 shots are fired by the men of the firing squad and 6 fall dead. At 2:30 p.m. they are buried in the First Cemetery, under strict security measures.
The acceleration of the execution of the six was done at the instigation of Pangalos. The general wanted them not to be caught alive by Captain Talbot, who shortly afterwards arrived in Athens as an envoy of the English Government to press the government to postpone the execution of the death sentences. The role of Eleftherios Venizelos is not completely clarified. He himself had retired from politics and was abroad not interfering, as he said, in government affairs. A telegram from him to the Government on the adverse effects of the execution arrived the next day (November 16).
The execution of the six was done mainly to satisfy popular sentiment and not because they had actually committed treason against Greece. This opinion is verified by the words of Theodoros Pagalos, years later:"I do not admit that they committed conscious treason... but they were fatal and necessary victims on the altar of the Fatherland".
The Retrial
On January 20, 2008, Michael Protopapadakis, grandson of Petros Protopapadakis, appealed to the Supreme Court and requested with his application the annulment of the decision of the Extraordinary Revolutionary Military Court of Athens of November 15, 1922 and the repetition of the procedure (trial), on the grounds of the existence of new data, in accordance with article 525 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The new evidence cited by the applicant was a letter from Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos to the leader of the official opposition Panagis Tsaldaris (January 1929) and an excerpt from Eleftherios Venizelos' speech to the Parliament on March 31, 1932.
In his letter to Panagi Tsaldaris, Eleftherios Venizelos wrote:
I can assure you in the most categorical way that none of the political leaders of the democratic faction consider that the political leaders who followed after 1920 committed treason against the country or that they knowingly led the country to the Asia Minor disaster. I can even assure you that I firmly believe that you would be happy if their policy leads Greece to a national triumph.
And during the meeting of the Parliament of March 31, 1932, Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, referring to the issue of the death sentence of the "six", stated that it was his sincere desire to restore the memory of the dead, for whom he was ready to attend a memorial service as be bound, after the relatives and friends of these, together in favor of them.
On November 19, 2009, the 7th Criminal Division of the Supreme Court, meeting in council, accepted the applicant's allegations by a vote of 3 to 2 and referred the matter to the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court for the final decision (1533/2009). On December 20, 2009, the Plenary of the Supreme Court met behind closed doors and, on the recommendation of the court's deputy prosecutor, Athanasios Kontaxis, decided that the issue of the repetition of the "trial of the six" was erroneously referred to it by the Criminal Division, and that consequently decision 1533 is revived /2009 of the Seventh Criminal Department.
On May 12, 2010, the 7th Criminal Department of the Supreme Court met in council under a new composition, to complete the decision 1533/2009 and to formulate the ordinance, according to article 145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Federation of Refugee Unions of Greece, which represents 185 unions and more than 300,000 descendants of the refugees of 1922, intervened in the trial with a statement of civil action, arguing that the request to repeat the process should be rejected, because the six convicted by the Military Court for the acts and their omissions caused the Asia Minor Catastrophe and the uprooting of Hellenism from its ancestral roots, after 3,000 years of presence in Asia Minor. The presentation of the civil action was dismissed as inadmissible by the court.
On October 20, 2010, the court issued its decision and accepted the petition of Michael Protopapadakis, finding the six sentenced to death by the Extraordinary Revolutionary Court of Athens not guilty. With decision 1675/2010, the Seventh Criminal Division of the Supreme Court annuls the decision of the Extraordinary Revolutionary Military Court of Athens regarding all those convicted of high treason and definitively terminates the criminal prosecution due to the statute of limitations.
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