CAROLINE Crouch’s twisted killer husband who covered up her death has launched a bid for freedom.
Anagnostopoulos, 34, murdered his Brit-born wife Caroline, 19, before staging a crime scene – tying himself up and killing the couple’s dog, Roxy, at their home in Greece.
The couple’s baby daughter Lydia, was found alongside her mum’s lifeless body – seemingly placed there by her evil dad in May 2021.
He claimed the robbers had suffocated the mum-of-one to death – but cops quickly found out that he was the real killer.
The murderer has since been languishing in jail after being sentenced to 27 years in prison.
But today, the twisted killer’s lawyer announced his client’s intention to file an appeal against the court in a desperate bid for freedom.
He told local news: “Everyone has the right to a fair trial. Let there be one so that what has not been heard in the first instance court can be heard.”
He explained the reason for the appeal was because his client was assigned two lawyers “without his knowledge” when he was first transferred to Malandrino prison.
In a bid to secure his client’s freedom, his lawyer asserted “he is the head of the accounting department of the canteen”.
It’s not the first time his lawyer has tried to argue his client is a “model prisoner”.
He previously stated the killer “reads a lot and works in the prison canteen” and should not be punished for a crime “that was never premeditated.”
‘Long and agonising death’
Caroline was introduced to Anagnostopoulos when she was just 15 on the Greek island of Alonnisos – and the two wed just three days after she turned 18.
Crouch, who was two months short of her 20th birthday when she died, was subjected to “a long and agonising death,” according to a state coroner who examined her body hours after the incident on May 11, 2021.
She was pinned down by the pilot as she slept in the couple’s Athens maisonette, violently resisting as she attempted to fight back as he suffocated her for five minutes with a pillow.
In a bid to win over judges last year in his initial trial, Anagnostopoulos described Crouch, who he had met as a teenager on the island of Alonnisos where she was raised, as “the love of my life.”
For 37 days, Greece was on tenterhooks as the man the nation thought was a grieving widower – who even hugged Caroline’s mum, Susan, in a moment of shared grief at his wife’s memorial – led police on a wild goose chase.
What happened to Caroline Crouch?
ANAGNOSTOPOULOS, 34, murdered his Brit-born wife Caroline, 19, before staging a crime scene – tying himself up and killing the couple’s dog, Roxy, at their home in Greece.
She was pinned down by the pilot as she slept in the couple’s Athens maisonette, violently resisting as she attempted to fight back as he suffocated her for five minutes with a pillow.
Eventually investigators got him to confess after it became clear with new evidence provided by Crouch’s smart watch that his own version of events was riddled with inconsistencies.
‘Absolutely despicable’
Caroline’s Liverpool-born dad, David, who has remained in Greece, has described his former son-in-law’s appeal as “absolutely despicable”.
He told Greek media: “It is absolutely despicable that my daughter’s killer is trying to get his prison sentence reduced because of his ‘good behaviour.’”
“The crime committed by the murderer, that of femicide, is a heinous crime that should deserve particularly severe punishment.
“In my opinion, men who kill their wives, for whatever reason, are the lowest of the low, ranking alongside paedophiles.
“I think it will be a sad day for women when the murderer of a defenceless woman who slept with her child will serve less than his full prison sentence.
“This man is beyond contempt.”
The pilot’s legal team are arguing that no mitigating circumstances were taken into account in the previous trial.
Babis’ lawyers previously argued he had acted in the “heat of the moment” after a row.
He also argues that he continued claiming his family had been targeted by an Albanian gang, fearing little Lydia would be taken away.
Last month, David claimed Babis killed his daughter because she had threatened to leave him if he continued trafficking drugs in an explosive interview on Greek TV.
He claimed the jailed pilot had confessed all in a typed letter he had sent him.
Caroline’s death made headlines across the world as the young mum was found brutally murdered next to her 11-month-old daughter, Lydia.
Babis kept up the pretence that his wife was a victim of a ruthless gang that broke into their maisonette on the outskirts of Athens.
He played the role of grieving husband for 37 days, sobbing to reporters, visiting his wife’s grave and even comforting Caroline’s heartbroken parents.
But his sick cover-up was rumbled after police pulled together a stack of digital evidence that disrupted his timeline of the alleged botched robbery.
It was only after eight hours of interrogation that he finally gave up the charade and confessed to the crime himself.
