Bio

Christos Kendiras was born in 1952 and was 48 years old at the time of the killings and bus hijacking in November 2000. He was a Greek car repairman from Piraeus. He was married, and the case developed from a domestic dispute involving his belief that his wife was having an affair.

Before the murders, Kendiras believed that his wife was cheating on him with a man named Stamatis Taktikos. He also blamed his mother-in-law, Georgia Spyrou, for the situation. During phone conversations with Greek television while the hijacking was happening, Kendiras spoke about family problems and said he wanted to kill his mother-in-law.

Murder Story

On November 4, 2000, Christos Kendiras began a violent series of events in southern Greece. Shortly after daybreak, he shot and killed his 77-year-old mother-in-law, Georgia Spyrou, near the port village of Galata. He then drove into Galata and shot dead 44-year-old Stamatis Taktikos, a man he believed was having an affair with his wife.

After the two killings, Kendiras drove north toward Epidauros, the site of an ancient theater and a major tourist destination. There, he set fire to his car and used the burning vehicle and his weapon to stop a passing tourist bus. The bus was carrying 33 Japanese tourists, a Japanese guide, a Greek guide, and a Greek driver.

Kendiras took control of the bus while armed with a shotgun and reportedly claimed to also have a pistol. He first ordered the bus toward Athens, then redirected it toward Galata, where the killings had occurred. Police vehicles, helicopters, ambulances, and members of Greece’s anti-terrorist squad followed the bus while keeping other traffic away.

During the hostage crisis, Kendiras used a mobile phone to speak with reporters and with television host Makis Triantafilopoulos. Some reports stated that he threatened to kill hostages if police intervened, though other reports said he did not directly threaten passengers during certain conversations. At one point, he fired toward a police motorcycle, and an officer was slightly injured by broken glass.

The hostage crisis lasted about 10 to 11 hours. Kendiras eventually agreed to surrender at Triantafilopoulos’s office in the Athens port of Piraeus. Television footage showed him handing his shotgun to the bus driver and bowing to the Japanese tourists before leaving the bus. None of the passengers were physically harmed. He was then arrested by police.

On November 5, 2000, before he could be formally charged with the two murders and the hijacking, Kendiras died by suicide at police headquarters in Athens. Authorities said he broke away from police escorts after fingerprinting, ran toward a window, broke through it, and jumped from the seventh floor. He landed on a lower balcony area and died from the fall. Public Order Minister Mihalis Chrisohoidis ordered an immediate investigation into how the suicide was allowed to occur while Kendiras was in custody.