ROBERT BALLANTYNE

A Toronto man who claims Greece's national airline and a funeral home mishandled his mother's remains says he'll spend the rest of his life living with the nightmare of seeing her mutilated body. Ilias Lamprinos, a contractor, said his mother's body, prepared after death a year ago by Toronto's Ogden Funeral Home and transported for burial in Greece by Olympic Airlines, arrived in Athens in a smashed-open coffin. Her body was in disarray and her skull broken open, he said.

"I'm going to have to live with that sight every day for the rest of my life," Lamprinos, 47, said in an interview. "My mother has been violated. It's just not right. No human being should be treated like this."

Lamprinos is suing both the airline and the funeral home, seeking $800,000 in damages from each. The lawsuit was filed on May 6, exactly one year after his mother's remains were shipped overseas.

The allegations have not been proven in court, and neither the airline nor the funeral home has filed a statement of defence.

"At this point, we have not been served any papers," David Garvie, Ogden Funeral Home's general manager, said yesterday. "We've had a good relationship with the family and we share their sense of frustration."

Lamprinos said the body of his mother, Georgina Kathlou Lamprinos, who died in a Toronto nursing home last year, was shipped from Toronto on May 6, 2003, and arrived in Athens a day later.

When he looked inside, according to the statement of claim, Lamprinos "discovered his mother's body had severe facial contusions and was lying crumpled in the coffin. Picking up his mother's body to straighten out her limbs, (he) discovered her upper body appeared to have multiple broken bones. Her brains had spilled out of her broken skull."

Garvie offered condolences to the family, but said the funeral home had followed all official procedures in this case. He said the funeral home has shipped human remains to destinations all over the world.

"If the (body) is not properly sealed and contained, it is not allowed to leave the country," he said. "Whatever happened occurred in Greece, either in the unloading or storage."

He added that the funeral home has no responsibility once human remains have left its possession and are properly delivered to a third party such as an airline.

However, the airline also claims to have followed all appropriate procedures.

"The shipment was stored in a bonded warehouse with no signs of damage," said Farial Karmali, a manager at Olympic Airlines' Canadian office. "Proper import protocols were completed with no exceptions."

Karmali said Olympic had not heard from any member of the Lamprinos family or their representatives since last July. At that time, Olympic issued a statement to Lamprinos' lawyer that said the airline had videotape evidence of Georgina's remains arriving undamaged.

"It was a two-minute videotape," Lamprinos confirmed. "I had to fly to Greece because (Olympic Airlines) told me they couldn't release it because of `national security' reasons."

Lamprinos told the Star yesterday he viewed the videotape with five witnesses, including family members and a Greek police officer. He said the videotape only showed his mother's coffin within another crate.

"Nobody wants to take responsibility for what happened," he said.

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