On the fifth anniversary of the murder of crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz, his family has renewed its call for the killers finally to be found.
Eleni Stamatoukou
Five years after the murder of veteran Greek journalist and crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz – believed to have been linked to his work investigating organised criminal groups – his family on Thursday called on the Greek state to investigate the case further.
“The state has taken no action to investigate the masterminds behind the brutal murder of Giorgos Karaivaz. The case is not closed, given that the masterminds have not been identified,” Roy Pavlea, a lawyer for the journalist’s mother and sister, told BIRN.
“The entire family is asking the state not to forget George and to pursue the issue of moral responsibility; we wonder why it has not done so. The family has not filed any new lawsuit, but continues to call on the state to intervene,” she added.
Following the acquittal of the defendants in the murder case, there has been no progress in the investigation, the Journalists’ Union of Athens Daily Newspapers noted in a press release issued on Wednesday, emphasising that “his killers are still roaming free”.
A court freed two defendants, brothers aged 41 and 49, in July 2024, citing doubts about the case against them. The two were alleged to have killed the well-known journalist on April, 9, 2021, outside his home in Alimos, a municipality on the southern coast of Attica.
The Karaivaz family’s lawyers appealed against this first-instance decision, which was rejected. In September 2024, they visited Supreme Court prosecutor Georgia Adeilini and again appealed the decision. This was again rejected in November 2024.
“As long as the Karaivaz murder remains unsolved, it will be a thorn in the side of legality and the rule of law,” the union stated, calling on the state to continue the investigations, “until the culprits – both natural and moral – are brought to justice”.
The International Press Institute, a media freedom campaign group, also issued a statement calling for justice to be done in the case.
“The International Press Institute (IPI) today renews our call to Greek law enforcement authorities to provide answers for his family and ensure those responsible finally face justice for this crime,” it said.
Karaivaz, 52, a veteran reporter who specialised in police and crime issues, appeared daily on a TV show and was also the founder and owner of bloko.gr, a website that focused on issues of law enforcement.
He had connections within the Greek underworld and was a key witness in the 2015-17 National Intelligence Service investigation into police connections to corruption circles.
Watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders’ 2025 World Press Freedom Index ranked Greece in 89th place out of 180 countries; it remains the lowest-ranking country in the European Union.
