Turkish man executed on Strefi Hill steps in Athens as police probe drug‑gang link

What happened

Shortly after 9 p.m. on Saturday 13 June, residents of Kallidromiou and Benaki streets in Exarcheia heard at least five gunshots. Police who rushed to the scene found a man lying dead on the stone steps leading up to Strefi Hill, just metres from the neighbourhood police station. The victim had been shot multiple times in the head and chest with a 9 mm pistol. Officers recovered five spent casings, though some accounts refer to as many as six shots. The killer, dressed in black with a cap pulled low to hide his face, escaped towards the wooded slopes of Strefi Hill. Despite an immediate cordon, he remains at large more than a day later.

Victim’s background

The dead man was identified only as a 25-year-old Turkish citizen who had been living in Greece for about a year and a half, having arrived in 2024. In Turkey he was well known to the authorities with a heavy file: robbery, residential burglary, drug trafficking, illegal weapons possession, assault, and digital banking fraud. Greek police sources said he had been brought in twice for random checks, once in Volos and once in Athens, but had no formal record in Greece and was described as “clean” as far as local files were concerned.

The motive

Investigators from the Directorate for Combating Organised Crime are working with two main scenarios. The first is a settling of scores over narcotics; the second is a continuation of the cycle of mutual extermination among rival Turkish groups that has been recorded repeatedly in Greece in recent years. Officers also do not rule out that the victim had fled Turkey seeking refuge but was eventually located by his pursuers.

Evidence gathered so far suggests the two men knew each other. Witnesses told police that a loud argument between the victim and the killer had erupted around 5 p.m. on the same day, hours before the shooting. Authorities are treating the killing as a premeditated act in which the perpetrator had been lying in wait, approaching the victim from behind as he walked down the steps.

The dog

A small dog that accompanied the victim throughout his daily routine was with him when he was shot. After rescuers confirmed the death, officers found the animal hiding silently under the dead man’s arm, too frightened to move even as police and neighbours tried to coax it away. Residents who initially feared the dog had been injured later expressed interest in taking it in; the police directed them to the Exarcheia precinct to follow the standard procedure.