ATHENS (Reuters) – Greek authorities are investigating 68 deaths at a nursing home on the island of Crete after relatives raised concerns about ill-treatment and the reported cause of death, a police official said on Friday.
As part of the investigation, local police last month requested the death certificates of residents at the home in the city of Chania from Jan. 1, 2020.
It emerged that 68 people had died in the space of a year and the cause of death was the same for all – cardiac arrest – with no further details, the official said.
One woman’s body was also exhumed on Thursday following a prosecutor’s order.
In a Facebook post, a lawyer for the nursing home, Ioannis Sfakiotakis, said there was “no evidence at all” against it.
He said a surprise raid in March by a group of prosecutors, police officers, medical examiners and health workers found no criminal acts and no arrests were made.
“No criminal charges have been filed, no police report has been issued, no findings of abuse were found in the exhumation of a former inmate of the nursing home yesterday,” he wrote.
A local prosecutor ordered the investigation after one woman, whose father died last year, filed a lawsuit against the nursing home.
Authorities say they are investigating possible criminal acts including forming and joining a criminal organization, the causing of bodily harm and manslaughter by deceit.
(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris, Editing by William Maclean)
