Forensic Document & Writing Expert, Chemist

John Makris is a Forensic Document & Writing Expert, Chemist with approximately 3 decades of continuous presence in the specific scientific area of expertise.

Following his graduation from the Police Academy in 1990, he started his career as an Officer in the PD of Kallithea from which he was later transferred to the Department for Underage offenders and then to the Homicides Department of the Police Directorate of Attica.

In February 1992, based on his evaluations and his university degree as a Chemist, he joined the Police Science Service (now known as the Forensic Sciences Division), where he served for 18 consecutive years, as Officer, Head of Laboratory, Head of Department and Deputy Commander, with the main object the examining of writing (handwriting & mechanical), signatures as well as pre-attack manifestos of terrorist organizations.

He established, acting under his orders as a competent Officer in the Forensic Writing Laboratory, where he served, the new (for that time) Digital Evidence Examination Sector and the Voice & Audio Examination Sector, which -today- have been further developed and are organized as Departments of the Directorate of the Forensic Sciences Division.

He holds a university degree in Chemistry [graduate of 1986] and during his service, after graduating from the Police Academy (SAEA) with the grade excellent and in addition to his daily duties as an expert -in training- and without taking any educational leave, succeeded and graduated -with the grade excellent- from the TEI of Athens, as a Graphic Arts Technologist.

In 2006, he received his MSc with the grade excellent from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens specialized in Language Technology.

Both during his initial training and afterwards he trained in various Police Services abroad (such as FBI [Quantico, Virginia, USA], BKA [Wiesbaden, Germany] and elsewhere) and participated as Officer- representative of the Police Science Division -in various scientific committees of his specialization in ENFSI (European Network of Forensic Science Institutes).

He is the 1^st founding member and member of the BoD of the Hellenic Association of Forensic Sciences, while he also served as the first Chairman.

He is also a associated member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (as Document Examiner) (www.aafs.org, USA) as well as a professional member of “The Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences” (www.csofs.org, UK).

He has presented his expert opinion on various criminal cases (including several cases concerning terrorism) as well as on various civil matters either as an Investigating Officer or a Technical Consultant (after his retirement).

He has given testimonies in Courts of Law of the first and second instance including first and foremost the hearings held on the case of the terrorist organization “17N”.

During his service, he was the main trainer of all young document and writing examination experts of the Hellenic Police and was a professor in the Police Academy where he taught the subject “Forensic Police".

Since the end of 2010, when he retired, he has been working as a Document & Writing Examiner - Chemist and is one of the two co-founders of “Forensic Associates”, a company of experts which deals mainly with ‘document’ cases within the meaning of the Article13c of the Greek Penal Code (including document and digital as well as audio and video evidence).

More recently under the name ‘Makris Forensics’ it is more concerned with the judicial & forensic examination of documents (& writing) and the provision of special advisory services to Lawyers, principally for forensic sciences, assisting in the evaluation of documents with emphasis on the reports of experts or opposing technical advisors (actions, methods, omissions, 'weaknesses').