Merchant Marine Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis announced his resignation on Monday following an outcry over the death of a passenger who was thrown overboard by ferry crew members last week.
The 36-year-old passenger was pushed by crew members as he tried to board a ship leaving the port of Piraeus, near Athens.
Miltiadis Varvitsiotis will be replaced by Christos Stylianidis, MP and former minister, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said at a press conference on Monday.
“The murder of Antonis Kargiotis by members of the Blue Horizon (ferry) crew shocked us all,” Miltiadis Varvitsiotis said in his resignation letter posted on social media.
He once again asked for “forgiveness” for this incident and stressed that “in recent days he has been the target of an attack” and that some have accused him of “equating the victim and the perpetrator”. “, which he refuses.
In a video that went viral last Wednesday, we saw the victim running just in time to reach the ferry in the port of Piraeus while the ramp was still lowered.
But members of the crew stop him and eventually Antonis Kargiotis is pushed by one of them, causing him to lose his balance and fall into the sea.
Despite the screams of passengers who saw the passenger in the water and feared for his life, the ferry leaves the port as planned for Heraklion in Crete, leaving the man to drown instead of coming to his aid.
The minister’s resignation comes a few hours after the judiciary ordered the temporary detention of the captain of the Blue Horizon, accused of “endangerment” at sea, and a crew member accused of murder.