The hospital escape
Passaris was being held in Greece pending proceedings for violent crimes when he was taken to Athens General State Hospital for medical examinations in February 2001. During the escort, he obtained a firearm, killed two police officers and escaped. The killings triggered a major manhunt and became one of the defining episodes in a criminal case that later crossed national borders.
Crimes while he was sought
Greek investigators linked Passaris to additional shootings, robberies and killings committed while he was on the run. Contemporary reporting shows that some allegations changed as evidence was tested in court: in a 2019 proceeding, for example, he was convicted on attempted-manslaughter and robbery counts but acquitted of other charges. That distinction matters because police suspicion and judicial findings are not the same thing.
Convictions in Greece
An Athens appeals court in May 2019 unanimously convicted Passaris of four murders, six attempted murders, three robberies and an abduction, imposing four life terms plus additional years. Later Greek proceedings addressed further charges. In August 2026, eKathimerini summarized the Greek outcome as four life terms for four murders plus an additional 49 years for seven attempted murders and three robberies.
Romania and current status
Passaris fled Greece and was arrested in Romania in November 2001. A Romanian court convicted him in 2003 of murdering two employees during a Bucharest currency-exchange robbery and sentenced him to life imprisonment. On August 13, 2026, eKathimerini reported that a Romanian court had definitively rejected his latest request for conditional release, meaning he remained imprisoned there.
Sources and further reading
Case context
Passaris is classified as adjudicated because courts in both Greece and Romania entered murder convictions. The archive nevertheless identifies individual allegations carefully and avoids treating every offense once attributed to him during the manhunt as proven.