ATHENS – A 21-year-old Greek man and his 19-year-old Albanian accomplice charged with torturing, raping, and murdering 21-year-old university student Eleni Topaloudi on Rhodes – throwing her into the sea while she was still alive – is set to pick up again.

The court is due to resume on May 4 in the case that shocked the island and Greece for its brutality and with what police said was the disregard of the suspects who are still not being named under privacy laws designed to protect people charged of crimes.

Courts are going into operation again with the gradual easing of a lockdown that was aimed at preventing the spread of the COVID-19 Coronavirus, with the case being heard in Athens after it was stopped temporarily on March 10.

That followed testimony of the father and grandmother of one of the suspects as well as that of a police forensic analyst, with earlier evidence that woman was alive when tossed into the sea, her last words being,  “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. Coast Guard officials said she was punched in the face and hit on the head with an iron then taken to a beach and tossed into the sea alive to drown.

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 their 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 paper said.

The Albanian said they hit and punched her, adding that it was the Greek man that hit her over the head with the iron, making her fall to the floor and, put her naked into a car and then driving to the beach to toss her away.