ATHENS – Greece’s Supreme Court will decide whether to overturn the release from prison of a special police officer, Epaminondas Korkoneas, whose killing of a 15-year-old boy sparked three weeks of riots in Athens and other cities in 2008.

He had been sentenced to life in prison for the fatal shooting of Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the Athens neighborhood of Exarchia where a group yelled at the officer and a colleague and attacked their car with bottles.

An appeals court reduced Korkoneas' sentence to 13 years in July 2019, citing his previous spotless record as a mitigating circumstance and he was let out of jail after serving 10 years.

Ironically, that came under a reform approved by the former ruling Radical Left SYRIZA designed to favor terrorists and anarchists but which also opened the door for the release of others convicted of violent crimes, including murder and rape.

Supreme Court prosecutor Vassilis Pliotas moved to quash the appeals court decision and a high court, by a vote of 3-2, accepted that request but left it up to the plenary session to make the final determination.

If the plenary agrees with the panel of judges, Korkoneas will be put on trial again as Greece doesn’t have double jeopardy laws barring repeated trials and appeals that can go on repeatedly.