The intervention of the Supreme Court, for the second time, was caused by complaints thatthe main building of ELTA Patras, contains asbestos materialswhich make it dangerous for the health and life of the workers!
The case also reached the Parliament, after a question, submitted by four of the 12 SYRIZA MPs, who, among other things, state:
“Today, on the one hand, we are in the hilarious situation, during which four (4) deaths of workers in the said building from neoplastic disease were counted (2023)possibly related to exposure to asbestos and on the one hand the person in charge of the technical repair and maintenance works of the building, Mrs. Athina Sougleri, who has highlighted the asbestos problem in the building in question based on her professional duty, should be disciplinary prosecuted and a vindictive action brought against her amounting to 150,000 euros”!
The Deputy Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Virginia Sakellaropoulou, who is intervening in the case for the second time, ordered the conduct of a preliminary examination, which this time she assigned to the Prosecutor’s Office of First Instance of Athens, in contrast to the first time, when the case had ended up in the Prosecutor’s Office of First Instance of Patras .
In the appeal to the Supreme Court, made by the civil engineer of ELTA Athinou Sougleri to the Deputy Prosecutor of the Supreme Court Virginia Sakellaropoulou, it was stated, among other things, that:
“An employee of ELTA, who worked during the disturbance (s.s. means the covering of asbestos with plasterboards) on the 2nd floor from 4.8.2018 to 14.8.2018, unfortunately now suffers from lung cancer, while throughout the building , other people have fallen ill, so far”.
The judicial development of the case has gone through forty waves, as it initially ended up in the Three-member Misdemeanor Court of Patras, with the then technical director and now retired, the contractor and the president of the ELTA Patras.
After repeated postponements, the trial took place in 2020 and the accused were acquitted.
However, in April 2021, the Deputy Prosecutor of the Supreme Court, Olga Smyrli, filed an appeal, against the decision of the Three-member Misdemeanor Court of Patras, which was accepted and the case returned to the Patras court.
The Supreme Prosecutor in her appeal identified a number of “gaps” in the original decision, while emphasizing that, “with what the Three-member Misdemeanor Court accepted, it did not include in its decision the specific and detailed reasoning, which is incomplete, unclear and contradictory”.
The trial of the officials of the ELTA has been determined to take place again on April 8 at the Three-member Misdemeanor Court of Patrons.
In their question, the 12 SYRIZA MPs address the Ministers of Digital Governance, Labor and Social Security, Energy – Environment and Health and state:
Theme: “In 2024 and within the EU, the EL.TA building of Patras continues to contain asbestos materials and does not ensure the health and safety of its human resources”
The central building of the EL.TA of Patras, on Zaimi and Maizonos Street, is old from 1974, it is a concrete and iron structure and asbestos materials have been used on all the floors and on the perimeter walls, at a time when the very properties of this material dangerous to human health.
Since 2009, it has occupied the Hellenic Parliament when the first (1st) asbestos material recording study of the first (1st) floor by Dimokritos was done. At that time, a document with the intention of the postal employees of the building, for the coating of the side walls and the floor, was charged to the Diploma in Civil Engineering with specialization in the environment, Ms. Athena Sougleri.
She proposed after an assessment of the occupational risk and in consultation with the National School of Public Health, as well as based on the prescribed legislation and taking into account the measurements, that the matter should be dealt with not by overlaying but radically, by removal, as the only safe solution .
Despite the then negative recommendation of the currently prosecuted engineer, the coating on the first (1st) floor was made with chipboards, a plastic carpet was installed, without a special study by a non-E.A.K. (Asbestos Demolition Removal Operations) company (art. 2 N4229/395)
The employees, with their recent statement to the current management, inform, among other things, that: today, the plastic carpet – and not an industrial floor as it should be due to rolling loads – has worn out and the asbestos of the floor is now visible, and the chipboards were not installed in a technically correct and safe way, causing the asbestos to be disturbed during their installation. Nor were special insulating materials ever placed around them, resulting in the particle boards no longer touching, leaving gaps between them and allowing the asbestos to disperse into the environment. With all this incomplete handling in a building with high-risk materials, in 2012 the engineer from the then administration moved to Patras to undertake on-site maintenance of the main building.
However, in August 2018, in the absence of the engineer, on the second (2nd) floor, an attempt was made to cover again in an even worse way, with repeated perforation of the asbestos sheets and the release of chipping dust, which dust has not been measured until now despite the requests her.
And this is because, as the engineer claims, the visual form of the dust in the formation of aggregates proves its dangerous composition, citing the experts and the first (1st) expert opinion.
When the engineer’s proposal to at least subsequently solidify the dust with a special methodology, in order to protect the workers, was rejected, a complaint was made, with the consent of the workers on the second (2nd) floor in the Region and SEPE, levels of which on autopsy and noted the disturbance, perforation and dust and temporarily evacuated the site. Regarding the case, in fact, 3 other questions were submitted to the Parliament until today.
SEPE sent the case to justice. However, while the Supreme Court intervened to overturn the initial acquittal decision of the three-member Misdemeanor Court of Patras, two (2) full years of postponements for the work carried out on the second (2nd) floor in August passed without any responsibilities being assigned.
It has also come to our attention that there have been new interventions by the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court due to delays, due to deaths and also that a new, third (3rd), technical expert opinion was carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office of Patras.
Today, on the one hand, we are in the hilariously tragic situation, during which four (4) deaths of workers in the said building from neoplastic disease were counted (2023), possibly related to exposure to asbestos, and on the other hand, the person in charge of the technical repair and maintenance works of the building, Mrs. Athena Sougleri, who has highlighted the asbestos problem in the building in question based on her professional duty, to be disciplinary and to have a vindictive action brought against her in the amount of 150,000 euros!
The issue, then, is that the huge multi-storey building in the heart of Patras near the new City Hall still contains, in the year 2024, despite the findings from 2009, asbestos materials and indeed disturbed, while it was decided to maintain it with the aim of either to remove the asbestos or to repair it in an adequate and effective way in terms of the safety and health of the workers and also of the hundreds of daily visitors.
It is totally unacceptable for the Greek government to allow people to work in such a building, the environment of which is extremely dangerous and proven to be carcinogenic for workers and visitors alike.
Because the primary duty of the state and government is to ensure the health and safety of citizens and workers in their working environment.
Because in order to be considered a modern European state, we have to harmonize with European data as reflected in the decisions and directives of the European institutions, and the advanced European countries have many years ago removed asbestos from their buildings.
The competent Mr. Ministers:
- 1. Why does the main building of EL.TA of Patras, on Zaimi Street 23, still contain carcinogenic asbestos materials?
- 2. What immediate measures does he intend to take so that the responsibilities are assigned and the building is made safe for the health of its employees and visitors?
- 3. Given the existing public risk from the deadly effect of asbestos, the management of each state enterprise has the right to manage its qualified personnel, its qualified engineers, its technical employees in accordance with their recruitment by State Law, as they see fit and at their expense of the Public Interest and Public Health?
- 4. It is the right action for state-owned enterprises under the supervision of TAIPED, to impose retaliatory lawsuits (SLAPP), such as the one against Ms. Sougleri, requesting exorbitant amounts of compensation from her expert scientist, when so many years were lost and are being lost, due to the obstruction of the maintenance work of the engineering with lost earnings, e.g. rents, revenues of millions of euros from tenants, who left the seven-story unmaintained building due to possible information about asbestos materials, after the 1st inquiry in the Parliament in 2009?
- 5. Have the competent Ministries and the competent SEPE and Region bodies been informed about the new, second (2nd) asbestos recording study of the entire building?
- 6. What national asbestos removal strategy has the Greek government drawn up and how will it boost the wave of renovations, which will help protect public health from the deadly asbestos in our buildings but also boost the Greek economy (construction industry)? Are asbestos buildings officially registered in Greece?
Document Filing Request
Please inform the body by submitting:
- The third (3rd) expert opinion.
- A copy of the special book of the safety technicians regarding the general assessment of the building’s risk, which is kept in the building every year based on legislation.
- Documents related to the actions of SEPE and the Region of Western Greece for the legal support of non-deletion of the fines they imposed on EL.TA. by the Administrative Courts, for the deletion of which EL.TA appealed.
The Questioning and Requesting Members of Parliament
Panagiotopoulos Andreas
Avlonitis Alexander
Gavril George
Dourou Irini (Rena)
Kontotoli Marina
Malama Sunday
Alexandros Meikopoulos
Konstantinos Barkas
George Papailiou
Papas Petros
Poulos Panagiou
Christidou Rally