1972: Vassilis Lymberis, the last executed in Greece
2 comments August 25th, 2010 Headsman
On this date in 1972, 27-year-old Cretan electrician Vassilis Lymberis was shot for murdering his mother-in-law, his wife, and his two children by burning down the family house that January. It would be the last execution in Greece.
Lymberis didn’t so much deny torching the place as he did go for the insanity-esque defense of being off his rocker from the mother-in-law. (As seen on TV.)
He also insisted that he didn’t know his children were in the house when he set it ablaze. “If you don’t believe me,” he insisted, “execute me this very moment!”
That Lymberis would obtain his milestone status was hardly predictable at the time; the country was still under the military junta; two years later, the regime collapsed and its former principals were themselves sentenced to death. (Those sentences were later commuted.)
Greece abolished the death penalty in stages (initially retaining it for serious wartime crimes) in the 1990s and early 2000s.
On this day..
- 1783: John Grinslade and John Cunningham - 2020
- Feast Day of St. Genesius - 2019
- 1854: Willis Washam, "I never done it, though, boys" - 2018
- 1945: Seven German POWs - 2017
- 1743: James Hunt and Thomas Collins, Pepper-Alley sodomists - 2016
- 1792: Barnabé Farmian Durosoy, royalist journalist - 2015
- 1944: Durga Malla - 2014
- 1916: Benjamin De Fehr, fragging driver - 2013
- 897: Pope Stephen VII, Cadaver Synod convener - 2012
- 1936: Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, Old Bolsheviks - 2011
- 1876: James Murphy, gibbeted - 2009
- 1945: John Birch, Society man - 2008
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Arson,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Execution,Greece,History,Milestones,Murder,Shot
Tags: 1970s, 1972, august 25, vassilis lymberis
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