ATHENS – A noted criminal defense attorney accused of bashing in his wife’s face  should get more lenient treatment, a prosecutor said, recommending the charges against Apostolos Lytras be reduced to a misdemeanor and house arrest.

Lyras is in pre-trial detention on felony charges for the alleged beating of his wife Sofia Polyzogopoulo, also an attorney but the prosecutor said the charge should be reduced to “dangerous bodily harm,” from “serious intentional bodily harm.”

The prosecutor also was said to have proposed Lytras be let out jail pending his trial under conditions that include a restraining order barring him from his family home, prohibiting contact with his wife, going to therapy and reporting to police.

He initially was only briefly detained after the reported attack but then re-arrested after police said that he sent threatening messages to his wife after he was charged with punching her savagely in the face in their car.

The case caused a brief sensation in Greece where there have been so many similar incidents they quickly slide out of the headlines and are forgotten but the government promised tougher measures against domestic violence at the time.

In June, Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis introduced new proposed rules to amend current laws and further enhance protection for women, including pre-trial detention for felony incidents of domestic violence.

Even if the victim consents, no criminal mediation procedure may be used in the case of especially serious domestic violence misdemeanors and a prosecutor would have the right to deny or cancel mediation agreements.