ATHENS – A prosecutor said two men accused of raping and killing 21-year-old university student Eleni Topaloudi on Rhodes in 2018 lured her to her death “like a lamb to the slaughter,” as the trial picked up again with the COVID-19 Coronavirus lockdown winding down.
In a four-hour presentation, Aristotelia Doga went about tearing down the defense put up by the two men, a 23-year-old Greek and 21-year-old Albanian, whose identities are being withheld to protect their privacy rights under strict Greek laws.
Doga said the men raped her, hit her on the head with an iron, put her naked into a car and took her to the sea and tossed in her alive to drown, her last words reportedly being that “My Dad will come after you both.”
Topaloudi’s body was found in the sea by the Coast Guard and evidence collected during the initial investigation led to the arrest of two suspect.
A public prosecutor charged the suspects with first-degree murder and rape of the victim who was allegedly lured to a holiday house belonging to the family of the 21-year-old then attacked her when she refused sexual advances, The Greek City Times of Sydney reported earlier.
The Albanian man showed Coast Guard officers the location where they afterwards threw away the victim’s clothes and other belongings, along with the electric iron used to hit her, delivering a damaging blow.
The two defendants described in detail what happened in the holiday house and the last moments of the victim’s life, with officers shocked by the calmness of the 19-year-old Albanian, as he described the way the two men tortured Eleni, the site said.