Forensic Architecture with new video evidence on Zak Kostopoulos

Police made little effort to investigate Kostopoulos’ death. They did not collect sufficient testimony, or footage from the numerous mobile phones and CCTV cameras that captured the scene. The assailants were not immediately arrested, and the crime scene was not sealed, allowing the jewellery shop owner to clean up potentially critical evidence. Media outlets, clearly in possession of more relevant footage than the authorities themselves, aggravated the situation by spinning divisive narratives in an already volatile political context.

Against the backdrop of such social and political failure, and given the reluctance of the police to investigate themselves, civil society initiatives (such as #JusticeforZakZackie) began to pursue accountability independently.

Throughtout the incident, one witness stand out: ‘the man in the yellow T-shirt’ was present and close to Zak, before and during the beating, as well as when Zak was apprehended by the police. Crucially, he was one of three people who were with Zak before he ended up in the jewelry shop. During the hand-cuffing, ‘the man in the yellow T-shirt’ can be seen holding an object that looks like a police baton. Yet the police claim that they can neither recognized nor trace him. His testimony might prove crucial in establishing the missing link between the different stages of the event and in establishing whether the killing of Zak should be understood as a hate crime.

Submitted to the Greek state investigator on 12 March 2019, this video has led to the extension of the official investigation, which was previously considered to be complete. As a consequence of this submission, the state investigator is currently conducting a second round of interviews with key witnesses in an attempt to identify this man.

Conflicts around the globe have increasingly become complex data and media environments and it is therefore necessary to develop analytic techniques and strategies that can match this complexity. Director of the Forensic Architecture Agency, Eyal Weizman, will discuss the ways in which image fields—produced by digital recording equipment, satellite communications, remote sensing technologies, and social media platforms—can be used to analyze violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. He will explain how the creation of animations and interactive cartographies not only helps us model events as they unfold in space and time but also helps us invent new techniques of media research and new ways of presenting investigations of violence in urban and architectural environments. Deputy Director of Forensic Architecture, Christina Varvia, will discuss the agency’s efforts to reconstruct the events leading to the murder of Pavlos Fyssas from audio and video material. The resulting video investigation and the accompanying report, presented in court September 2018, joins CCTV footage, recordings of communications between police and emergency services, and witness testimony, and points to the role images can play within forensic and criminal investigations.