One February afternoon in 2024, returning from my office to my home and while waiting for the elevator, a well-dressed gentleman, around forty-five to fifty years old, whom I did not know, was coming down the stairs. He paused when he recognized me and introduced himself. He said verbatim: "I have wanted to meet you and congratulate you for many years. Not only for your career, which I follow, but mainly for the case of the girl you acquitted in Hong Kong. You saved a life, and all of us Greeks were moved at that time."

Five years have passed since Irene's acquittal, and I am impressed that, not only in Greece but also abroad, when I travel, the first topic people mention to me is this particular case. If someone wonders, therefore, why I proceeded with the endeavor of writing this book, the answer is simple. 

In the thirty-three years that I have served the profession of a lawyer, I have never experienced such public interest and such identification with a defendant. Every Greek family saw their child in Irene's face, shackled with a hood over her head, at Hong Kong airport. They identified with the parents' painful surprise and anxiety, as well as with the sorrow for her almost certain conviction and the destruction of her life and future. Her unexpected and hopeful acquittal on March 13, 2019, in Hong Kong was completed with her re-acquittal on March 29, 2023, by the Greek Justice.