Christos Sartzetakis (; 6 April 1929 – 3 February 2022) was a Greek jurist and a supreme justice of the Court of Cassation, who served as the president of Greece from 1985 to 1990. Early life and education Sartzetakis was born in Neapoli, Thessaloniki, on 6 April 1929. His father, who served as a Gendarmerie officer in Thessaloniki, was a Cretan born in Kandanos, Chania, and his mother was a Greek Macedonian born in Sklithro, Florina. He obtained a degree in law from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Legal career Sartzetakis entered the judicial career in 1955, became Justice of the Peace at Kleisoura, Kastoria, and in 1963, served as judge of the Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki. Assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis and imprisonment by junta On 27 May 1963, the left-wing Member of Parliament Grigoris Lambrakis died four days after being beaten. Sartzetakis was called by the attorney of the Greek Supreme Court Constantine Kollias to proceed with the investigation, as the case was transferred to the Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki. In March 1964, he sent a letter to the Minister of Justice Polychronis Polychronidis in which he implicated the police and the State as responsible for the murder. Together with the prosecutor Stylianos Boutis, he ordered the preventive detention of four officers. The trial began on 3 October 1966 and lasted 67 days at the Criminal Court of Thessaloniki. Sarzetakis and the prosecutor Pavlos Dellaportas were under intense pressure to quickly close the case without continuing the investigation. Two months later, the verdict was announced in which 21 defendants and all agents were acquitted, thus rejecting the prosecutor's proposal. Only two persons were convicted as perpetrators, and both were pardoned by the Junta shortly thereafter. Kollias, who soon became Prime Minister under the military junta, claimed that "Sartzetakis will answer to me." In his memoirs, published after leaving the presidency, he stressed that Lambrakis' death was a clear political assassination with direct state involvement. Sartzetakis was expelled from the judiciary along with 29 magistrates with the Greek Junta's Constitutional Act of 28 May 1968, allegedly because "in the exercise of his functions, he acted in a discriminatory manner, motivated by his political convictions in favor of a political party, in a way that violated the confidence of the citizens in his impartiality". The Lambrakis investigation was the theme of the 1966 novel Z by Vassilis