John Macris set to be farewelled, funeral shrouded in fear

GREEK-Australian John Macris is set to be farewelled after being shot dead outside is house in Athens, but friends and relatives of the underworld figure might be too scared to attend.

EXECUTED Aussie gangster John Macris will be farewelled on Sunday at a funeral some are scared to attend.

The 46-year-old’s brother Alex Macris last night was reported to be en route to Athens from Sydney to be with his grieving relatives.

But aside from immediately family, including his Greek reality TV star wife Viktoria Karida and two young children, it was unclear who would attend the service.

MORE: The final moments of John Macris

MORE: John Macris killed by three hitmen

MORE: Sydney gangster John Macris shot in chest

John Macris who was shot dead outside his house in southern Athens. Picture: Giorgos Kontarinis/AP

Some Greek journalists, who have been covering the case and learning of his murky past — including his drug convictions in Australia — yesterday said they were afraid to report from the church.

Three days on from Macris’s killing — by up to three gunmen outside his posh seaside villa in the Voula district of Athens — News Corp has learned a team of 10 police are investigating the crime.

The funeral will be held at 1.30 pm Greek time on Sunday at Saint Nektarios church in Voula, the plush seaside resort where Macris lived and died.

At least 500 people are expected to attend, according to the Greek Orthodox priest who will preside over the ceremony at the church where Macris often came to attend mass, Father Cerafim Lazaros .

Police at scene where Fadi Ibrahim was shot five times and his 23-year-old girlfriend shot once in leg in his parked Lamborghini outside his Neerim Rd, Castle Cove home in 2009. Macris was accused of organising the attempted hit.

Father Lazaros told News Corp that noone from the family will be giving a eulogy for the slain underworld figure and that he himself will be making a standard speech at the service in the beige-coloured church that stands at the top of a broad sweeping set of white steps.

“I saw Mr Macris several times in the church. He would occasionally attend mass on Sundays and other days and sometimes came to light a candle. I didn’t know him but we would say hello,” Father Lazaros said.

The coffin will remain closed during the ceremony but if the family requests it can be left open as mourners file past the casket to pay their last respects. But Father Lazaros said no such request has yet been made.

After the ceremony the casket will be carried down the steps and will then be taken to a funeral parlour before the remains are returned to Australia for burial there. It was not clear what day the burial will take place.

Father Lazaros said media will be banned from inside the building but that he expected a media presence outside the church whose altar is lined with icons of its patron saint and of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

Greek media was yesterday reporting that the hitman had been brought in from abroad — from Albania or Russia — and that he had likely left Greece immediately after the slaying.

CCTV footage from Macris’s house reportedly shows a man around 1.70 metres tall with his face concealed beneath a baseball cap gunning down the victim before running off.

Police would not comment on the motive for the killing, but are investigating local battles with Greek gangsters and the shooting of an Athens underworld figure a week earlier in the port of Piraeus.

John Macris with his wife Viktoria Karida and their daughter Alexandra in 2013. Picture: Supplied

Macris previously had a long-running feud with Sydney’s Ibrahim family. It is not suggested they had anything to do with the hit.

It comes as the extent of Macris’s high-flying connections in the capital were exposed, with news one of his associates in the new security businesses he set up in Greece was a former government minister.

The politician, Aris Spiliotopoulos, was said to have poured 40,000 euros (A$63,000) into one firm, but withdrew his money before any business was conducted.

Mr Spiliotopoulos did not respond when contacted for comment by News Corp.

Macris, an ex-boyfriend of Sydney PR queen Roxy Jacenko, had been on his way on Wednesday to a party to inaugurate the new offices of his new business, which he co-founded with a separate Greek associate, when he was murdered.

But the company appeared to have been quickly shut down after his death. Its offices, in a prime location around three kilometres from his home, stood empty yesterday, and the signs with the company’s name had been torn down from its facade.

Macris was set to inaugurate the new offices of his new business. Picture: Supplied

On an inside wall its slogan could still be seen, ironically stating that “We believe in keeping you safe.”

An Athens security expert said given the industry as a whole was facing hard times, it was a surprise Macris suddenly had plenty of cash to splash around.

Macris is believed to have invested several hundred thousand euros into his new enterprise.

“It was almost overnight, he appeared with all this money, we thought who was this guy?” Stefanos Karafotias, the head of Karakitsos Security, told Nine News.

Workers in another firm in the same building looked tense when asked for comment by News Corp, and quickly closed their door with a curt “We have nothing to say”.

Neither Macris’s father or wife would comment yesterday.

His body is in the morgue at Athens University where doctors have carried out an autopsy.