A 26-year-old Afghan migrant has been jailed pending trial for the murder of a Scottish aid worker whose body was discovered in a suitcase in Athens. The suspect appeared before an investigative magistrate on Thursday at a central Athens courthouse.
The hearing lasted nearly three hours, after which he was ordered to be held pending trial on murder charges connected to the death of the 38-year-old woman. Her decomposing body was found inside a suitcase in the downtown Kypseli district on July 18 during a heat wave. Authorities are awaiting tissue-analysis results to confirm whether suffocation caused her death.
Greek data protection laws prevent authorities from naming suspects without consent, but officials confirmed the suspect is a migrant from Afghanistan. He entered Greece in 2016 as an unaccompanied minor and was granted international protection status in 2018, according to Migration Minister Thanos Plevris. Plevris stated the suspect had no criminal past prior to this incident.
Police initially detained the suspect after reviewing security footage from the area where the body was found. He was originally held on weapons charges but now also faces charges of premeditated homicide and allegedly stealing over 10,000 euros (approximately $11,500) from the victim's accounts.