The Greek pilot who killed his British wife, Caroline Crouch, in a crime he tried to pin on ruthless foreign robbers, has unexpectedly announced he will drop an appeal to overturn his life sentence.
Babis Anagnostopoulos said he had elected “for extremely serious reasons” to put a stop to appeals court proceedings
under way since May, without further explanation.
[...]
Reacting to the news, the Briton’s distraught father, David, admitted he had been “astounded” by the decision but told the Guardian he was also “reluctant to take the announcement at face value”.
The retired gas and oil executive, who raised Caroline on the island of Alonissos after settling in Greece with her Filipina-born mother, Susana, said that in the face of it the decision was “wonderful news for my family and me”.
“Every time he appears in court we are forced to relive the nightmares of the last two years and listen to his lies as he tries to justify his killing of my daughter,” he wrote in an email. “Unfortunately I am not convinced we have heard the last of [him], he is a tricky, duplicitous b.....d; not very smart but a born actor who always has his eye on the main chance … I can’t believe that he is prepared to drop his appeal and calmly return to prison to serve out his life sentence plus 11 and a half years – he is not that kind of person.”
It was, he said, his “resolute” determination that neither the pilot, nor his parents, would “ever
lay eyes on my beautiful little granddaughter”.
Babis Anagnostopoulos received a 27-year sentence for smothering his wife in Athens
www.theguardian.com