Crime and law, Golden Dawn, greece



All 18 MPs elected with the neonazi Golden Dawn party in 2012 should stand trial for membership of a criminal organisation, a prosecutor said on Thursday, in a massive 698-page report submitted to judges.

In total, prosecutor Isidoros Dogiakos, who is handling the Golden Dawn case, recommended that 67 out of a total of 81 people accused in the case be indicted on criminal charges. As one of the accused was underage at the time, he should face the juvenile court.

Of the remaining 14 people, Dogiakos said there was insufficient evidence against nine of them but that three should face misdemeanour charges.

“A party that seeks to achieve its goals through the use of physical or armed force is not legal,” Dogiakos said in his report, stressing that the courts have the right to judge a political party as a criminal organisation.

The prosecutor, in his dossier, asked the judicial council in the case to indict all current and former members of Golden Dawn’s parliamentary group – including the now independent deputies Valantis Alexopoulos and Stathis Boukouras – to be tried by a three-member criminal appeals court for involvement in the party’s activities as a criminal outfit.

The judicial council is expected to issue its decision in roughly a month on which of the defendants will be tried before a criminal court.

Dogiakos stressed that any association of persons “under the guise of a political party” that did not uphold the functioning of the democratic order but abused the right to found a political party that seeks to impose its goals through acts of violence and intimidation could not be considered legal.

He also underlined that if Golden Dawn’s members were convicted on the charges relating to a criminal organisation, then the party must be outlawed.

Referring specifically to party leader Nikos Michaloliakos and his MPs, he recommended that they be indicted for participating in and leading a criminal organisation. He also recommended that Michaloliakos, Ilias Kasidiaris, Nikos Michos, Yiannis Lagos, Yiorgos Germenis and Stathis Boukouras be indicted on additional felony charges of gun possession with the intent to to supply a criminal organisation.

In his recommendation, the prosecutor, referred to all Golden Dawn’s criminal actions, including the murder of musician Pavlos Fyssas, the attacks against members of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) in Perama, the attack against Egyptian fishermen, the attack against a student in Paleo Faliro and against Pakistani workers in Crete.

The prosecutor referred to several incidents since 1980 and stressed that – from 2008 onwards – Golden Dawn had become more aggressive. He also emphasised that the intensity of violent incidents increased around the 2012 elections, when – with the tabling of a new party constitution statute in the supreme court – the criminal organisation assumed the form of a political party.

The prosecutor reportedly said that a political party can be a criminal organisation when it uses its structures and staff to commit criminal acts.

Dogiakos noted that the organisation was operating under an absolute hierarchy, led by Michaloliakos. Next in line were deputy leader Christos Pappas, Kasidiaris, Ilias Panagiotaros and Yiorgos Germenis.

In relation to the murder of Pavlos Fyssas, Dogiakos noted that the victim had been targeted and that Golden Dawn structures were mobilised for his murder. “They knew who he was,” the report says.

Dogiakos’ dossier recommends that Yiorgos Roupakias, the man who stabbed Fyssas, stand trial for murder and 16 people for aiding and abetting the crime. According to the JailGoldenDawn lawyers initiative, this group amounts to the Golden Dawn’s so-called attack squad in the Nikea district where Fyssas lived.

In his recommendation, the prosecutor noted that the claims of five protected witnesses were fully confirmed by the history and the details of the case.

The trial will most likely start in early 2015, while a number of locations for the court are being considered.

Sources: AMNA, JailGoldenDawn