Greece: Man shoots dead 13-year-old Romani girl, allegedly over argument with her father

A 34-year-old man shot dead a Romani girl in a settlement near Amfissa, Greece at the beginning of this month. On 4 June the gunman drove a truck into the settlement and fired his weapon.

The 13-year-old victim died as a result of her injuries. The shooter allegedly drove to the settlement to settle scores with the girl's father.

The motive for the shooting is not absolutely clarified yet. Greek media are reporting more than one version of the incident.

One version speculates that the Romani girl's father allegedly stole something from a butcher shop run by the shooter out of his home. Another version speculates that the shooter had regular conflicts with local Roma because of his alleged tendency to drive his car at dangerous speeds in the neighborhood, posing a risk to people in the settlement, and that he had argued with the girl's father about that.

The girl's horrified mother witnessed the entire tragedy and was unable to rescue her daughter. "I was there, he had a gun and he shot my little girl. My little girl is dead now, dead," the devastated mother told the European Roma Rights Centre.

The perpetrator, who was accompanied by another man, drove away from the settlement after the incident and then abandoned his automobile about a kilometer outside it. The two men fled the scene on foot after that.

The other passenger in the automobile was an employee of the butcher shop owned by the shooter. Police apprehended the passenger the next day and charged him with being an accomplice to the incident for not preventing his boss from firing the gun.

The man who fired the weapon was not found by police until one week later. He hid in the mountains, allegedly out of fear that the family of the little Romani girl would find him and exact revenge.

Members of the family allegedly set his business and the car he fired the weapon from on fire. Police are now interrogating the gunman.

The lawyer for the shooter claims the girl's murder was not intentional. The ERRC has criticized the European media for taking little interest in the case and for failing to inform the public enough about it.

The ERRC notes that compared to the publicity given a case several years ago about a blonde Romani girl in Greece who had allegedly been kidnapped by another Romani family, this murder case in Greece is not receiving anywhere near as much publicity. The circumstances of the murder are still being investigated.