A 34-year-old woman appeared before an Athens court on Monday, accused of killing her three daughters within three years, in a case that has sparked outrage in Greece.
Rula Bispirego, who is in a maximum security prison, is being tried for “attempted premeditated murder” and “intentional murder” of her eldest daughter.
The defendant denied all charges against her.
Rola is accused of poisoning her 9-year-old daughter Georgina in January 2022 by giving her ketamine.
And Georgina died in hospital, where she had been admitted several times since she first suffered seizures in April 2021, which led to quadriplegia.
Pespirego was arrested in March 2022 and the woman has since maintained her innocence.
After her arrest, authorities launched an investigation into the deaths of her two other daughters, Malina (3 years old when she died in 2019) and Iris (she was six months old when she died in 2021).
Results of forensic medical examinations conducted on them showed that the two girls had died of suffocation and, despite the ongoing investigation, Bisberg was charged in August in connection with the two girls’ deaths.
Pesperigo arrived in court today, handcuffed and surrounded by police officers.
The judge rejected his lawyer’s request to merge the three cases, although he agreed to postpone the trial to Wednesday, after Pespirego appeared before a judge investigating the cases of the two girls.
The killing of the three children received a lot of media attention in Greece, where such crimes are relatively rare.
In April 2022, he called on the government to remain calm in the face of widespread calls for Pesperigo to be killed.
When she appeared in court shortly after her arrest, Pesperigo was wearing a bulletproof vest, as riot police were deployed to control the crowd, who chanted “murderer, confess your crime.”
“Death to a Child Murderer” was written on the facade of his house in Patras.
