An original translation by Egri Nok with much thanks!

From This German language news site:

Jails in Greece are over crowded, protests and revolts are not rare incidents. SourceLOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images

The suspect of Freiburg had already been sentenced to ten years of imprisonment and served jail time in Greece

But still, he was released as part of an amnesty, allegedly because of over crowded prisons.

An expert supposes that in fact it was about party-politics for the Syriza government.

Much has been said and written on the case of the alleged woman killer of Freiburg, an Afghan refugee who was already in prison for a similar crime in Greece. Ten years’ imprisonment was the verdict after he had thrown a young woman off a cliff.
However, after only one and a half years, he was released in October 2015 as part of an amnesty, with the requirement to report regularly to the police.
Instead, he soon disappeared to Germany. The Greek authorities announced a manhunt, but only within the country – the European Ministries of the Interior therefore had no information about him.

The Greeks did not release an international Arrest warrant
The alleged murderer of Freiburg is convicted in Greece because of a killing offense, Federal Minister of the Interior de Maizière said. He was identified with no doubt. He holds the Greek authorities in part to blame.

“Incompetence,” suggests Dimitris Papadimitriou, a Greek researcher at the University of Manchester. The purpose of the amnesty was to create space in Greece’s overcrowded prisons, by freeing mainly prisoners whose offenses were not particularly severe.
In the case of such less serious cases, it is not customary to alert international authorities if the person released, breaches his reporting obligation and disappears.

Rulebook slowdown? Or lack of attention?
Perhaps, according to Papadimitriou, the responsible authorities had just been “engaging in a rulebook slowdown”. As the perpetrator had been released in the context of an amnesty for less serious crimes, it was perhaps not deemed necessary to report to the partner authorities abroad. Or they just did not pay attention.
The man, however, had been sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for attempted murder. Not a light offense, and Papadimitriou neither understands why the case was not reported to abroad, nor why the man was released at all.
The German Ministry of the Interior has announced that it would demand an explanation from the Greek authorities on their lack of activity.
The Ministry of Justice in Athens has justified its decision with “good conduct” of the prisoner. “Even with very good behavior, a release is normally only considered when at least half of the sentence has been served,” says Papadimitriou. In this case five years.

One goal: the release of a Leftist Bomb Maker
But the amnesty had reduced the threshold to 20 percent for prison sentences between three and ten years. A fifth of ten years – in this case, this would be two years. The perpetrator, according to media reports, had only served 1.5 years.

There have been speculations as to whether the Greek leadership simply wanted to get rid of as many criminals as possible with the amnesty. It came in October 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis. Greece’s prison population and, therefore, a large proportion of the amnesties, consist of migrants, so – according to critics – it was only reasonable to assume that many of them would move with the great refugee stream towards Germany.
The reason, however, was probably a different one: the party-political dynamics within the left-populist Syriza government. “The left wing was still very strong in the party at that time”, says Syriza specialist Papadimitriou, “and a broad liberalization of the penitentiary system was a central theme for these forces.” They even tried to press the easing of detention conditions and lessening of penalties for Greek leftist terrorists, as well as the release of the imprisoned bomb maker of the terrorist group “17. November” Savvas Xiros.

Dangerous violent criminals were released.
So the amnesty resulted from idealistic ideas, not to get rid of prisoners in the direction of Germany, the researcher says. To some extent, the amnesty had even been a reasonable idea, but it went wayward fro ideological reasons and out of incompetence.
The later Freiburg suspect was not the only dubious beneficiary of the amnesty. The step had caused outrage among parts of the population, because dangerous violent criminals were also released.
One of them Vassilis Stefanakos, who is notorious in Greece, sentenced to several years of imprisonment (21 years, 14 years, 14.5 years) for several offenses ranging from aid to murder, extortion, and smuggling, to aiding the escape of a prisoner. He allegedly also cooperated with a terrorist group. He was released in this amnesty after serving only 8 years.

The courts are absolutely overwhelmed
Accordingly, opposition politicians criticized the amnesty sharply, and demanded that only perpetrators who had committed no violent crimes, and who no longer are a danger to the society, should be released early. It is unclear whether the Greek authorities will now review the files of the amnesties again, and report problems to the ministries of the EU.

The overcrowded prisons are not the only problem of the Greek justice. According to media reports, the courts are so overworked that it would take ten years to process all cases on record, even if no new cases were added on top. Several-month-long strikes of the judicial officials last year exacerbated the problem. According to media reports, the burden on the courts doubled in 2015 from 380,000 to 700,000 unprocessed cases.
In addition to that, Greece has by far not enough specialized lawyers to cope with the tens of thousands of asylum applications in the refugee crisis. Especially judges for second-instance proceedings are lacking. The EU had promised aid with personnel, but so far little has been achieved. Less than 100 lawyers from the EU have so far been sent to Greece to help with asylum procedures. Several hundred were promised.