Caroline Crouch’s killer sent to new ‘hardcore’ jail after brutal prison attack in revenge ‘for blaming foreign gang’

CAROLINE Crouch’s killer husband has been sent to a new hardcore prison after he was brutally beaten in a revenge attack.

Babis Anagnostopoulos, 34, who was jailed for life for the murder of his Brit wife, had initially blamed a violent foreign gang for her death.

He had claimed at the time that 20-year-old Caroline died in a botched robbery by "foreign" raiders who broke into their home in Glyka Nera, Greece.

He had said he believed the attackers were from Georgia and Albania, going so far as to back up his claims by listening to taped recordings of dialects from both countries.

A Georgian man with a history of burglary was arrested and brutally interrogated by police, but there was no forensic evidence to link him to the crime. 

The 34-year-old kept up the charade for weeks but his elaborate web of lies was eventually uncovered after police pulled together a stack of digital evidence that disrupted his timeline of the alleged attack.

And now it appears that it was payback time for the pilot after he was attacked by another inmate while serving a life sentence.

The Sun Online has learned that the man behind the attack was the Georgian man who had been a suspect in the fake robbery last year.

One police insider said: “Time has caught up with him and his lies.

“It’s payback for Agnagnostopoulos.”

The Georgian, who attacked him in Korydallos on January 10, had openly admitted “looking for” the pilot so that he could “kill him.”  

The 34-year-old, formally admitted to Malandrinos prison in central Greece today, has begged authorities to return him to Athens’ high-security Korydallos jail citing humanitarian and safety concerns.

Home to around 900 "hardcore" criminals most of whom are foreign, Malandrinos has one of the toughest reputations in Greece and is a far cry from the VIP suite the pilot had been locked up in prior to being handed an enhanced life sentence in May.  

“He’s very worried, “ the wife killer’s lawyer, Alexandros Papaioannidis, told The Sun Online.

“The new jail houses around 900 hardened criminals and is very hard, very tough.”

Most, he said, were foreign with the vast majority being either Albanian or Georgian.

Last year convicted felons from both nations were pulled out of police line-ups after being identified by Anagnostopoulos and allegedly tortured by officers trying to get to the bottom of the crime.  

'IN A BAD WAY'

Anagnostopoulos, placed in 72-Covid quarantine after his transferral to Malandrinos on Monday, will initially be put in a single cell but his isolation in jail where guards are regularly attacked won’t last long.

Papaioannidis said: “He'll have to share a cell at least with one other person.

“Psychologically he is in a very bad way. He feels very badly because of the loss of his wife.”

Tried by a mixed jury court last month he described how he pinned Crouch down surprising her as she slept following a furious argument between the two before suffocating her with a pillow.

Her agonising death took more than five minutes, according to a coroner's report.

Anagnostopoulos, who was described by a psychiatrist who appeared as an expert witness for the defense as "dangerously narcissistic" and capable of committing the same crime again, has applied to study law telling prison authorities he wants to sit the entrance exams to law school.

The pilot had spent months prepping himself for the trial by swotting over legal texts.

He is believed to have had a hand in the written request to return to Koyrdallos prison.

He was found guilty of murdering the young mum at the Athens Mixed Jury Court last month.

He was also found guilty of animal abuse and two counts of perverting the course of justice after his elaborate ruse was rumbled.

The mixed court of jurors and judges overwhelmingly rejected Anagnostopoulos' attempt to make the murder look like a "crime of passion", saying it was clear it was premeditated and should be punished as such.