As I reported recently, one of Australia’s longest-running cold cases is a step closer to seeing justice served. Last week, Greek Australian Perry Kouroumblis was arrested in Rome. Kouroumblis fled to Greece after being asked to provide a DNA sample in connection with the 1977 ‘Easey Street’ double sex-murder.
The case gripped Melbourne after two women were found savagely stabbed to death in their rented home in the inner suburb of Collingwood. One had been raped post-mortem. Their bodies were discovered three days after the attack, when neighbours heard the infant son of one of the victims crying inside the house.
Shortly after the murders, then 17-year old Kouroumblis was stopped by police in Collingwood and found with a bloodstained knife in his possession. He claimed to have found it on railway tracks on the night of the murder. Later testing showed that the blood was human and the same type as murder victim Suzanne Armstrong.
Kouroumblis’ parents owned a house three streets away from the murder location. He was also a student at Collingwood Education Centre, where the other victim, Susan Bartlett, was a teacher.
Surely all of this would have set a good copper’s radar tingling?
Well, it was a different world in 1977 – one where it was relatively easy to disappear. Kouroumblis, facing unrelated burglary charges, absconded and disappeared before the coronial inquest. The same month as the inquest, his parents sold their house. Three years later, they had dropped off the electoral roll, believed to have returned to Greece. Their son also moved to Greece for a time, before quietly slipping back into Victoria.
When police re-opened investigations in 2017, citing new DNA evidence, they contacted Kouroumblis and asked him to provide a sample. He promptly vanished back to Greece. Greece, as it happens, imposes a 20-year statute of limitations on extradition. Kouroumblis was only nabbed last week when he travelled to Italy.
When news of the arrest broke, Kouroumblis’ associates in Australia expressed shock.
Arjan Tuli [...] is the owner of the Melbourne home where Kouroumblis had been living before his move to Greece, and he also knew him for more than 20 years through his daughter, who is married to Kouroumblis’ brother, Tony [...]
Tuli said he was shocked at the accusations made against Kouroumblis, who he called a “normal person”.
“We can’t believe Perry is involved in this sort of thing. He was very open, very calm,” Tuli told this masthead.
“I don’t think this can be proven because I don’t think Perry was that sort of person. If somebody had done this sort of thing he would be in hiding, not living a normal life over here as a normal citizen.”
Long-time neighbour Phil Akers also expressed disbelief.
“When I heard the news, you could have knocked me off the chair with a feather. I was dumbfounded,” Mr Akers told 7.30.
“I don’t think he’s capable of murder.
Members of Kouroumblis’ extended family, though, paint a far-less-rosy picture.
Accused Easey Street double murderer Perry Kouroumblis was “a problem boy” who spent his teenage years breaking into homes, stealing jewellery and drifting in and out of youth detention.
Speaking from his home in Greece, Kouroumblis’ estranged cousin Periklis Kouroumblis described the 65-year-old as a “jerk” with a difficult character.
He said his cousin kept to himself and had an appetite for trouble from a young age.
“Perry was a problem boy,” Periklis told Nine News. “He’s a difficult guy. Difficult character.”
His problems with the law began in his early teens in Greece.
“[Perry] was alone here when he was 14 years old. The parents lived in Australia,” he told Nine News.
“Police said he went in the houses, unlocked the door with an instrument, to go inside and steal. My father was a policeman and he tried to make it better.” But, Periklis said, that effort had achieved “nothing”.
Kouroumblis is currently in custody in Rome, awaiting extradition hearings, which will likely take months.
Extraditions are a complex and drawn-out affair. Even after police obtain a warrant for someone’s arrest, they need to prepare a draft extradition request, which needs to be signed off by the federal attorney-general’s office before being sent overseas for consideration.
Australian authorities have 45 days from the date of Kouroumblis’ arrest in Rome to formally request his extradition.
An Italian court will then hear evidence from Victoria Police, to establish whether the case is solid enough to grant extradition.
On Tuesday, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton confirmed the government was yet to send a formal letter to Italian authorities and said it would be at least a month before cold-case homicide detectives travelled to Rome to give evidence.
Then there’s the EU.
“The only wild card is that because Italy is part of the European legal system, there’s some prospect, albeit remote at the moment, that there could be appeals within the European human rights system,” [Donald Rothwell, a professor of international law at the Australian National University] said.
Well, it’s not like the EU to prioritise the ‘human rights’ of murderers and rapists over justice, now is it?
Speaking of which, if he needs a lawyer, he should contact the NZ Greens: they might know a lawyer or two with form, not to mention a bit of spare time right now.
