Greece prepares for Nov 17 terror trial
Nineteen suspected members of the Greek terror group November 17 were set to appear before a prison court in Athens on Monday in the country’s biggest criminal trial for three decades.
The case is seen by many observers as a test of the government’s will to eliminate a domestic scourge that has blackened its image since the 1970s.
November 17 have been responsible for 23 murders, including the death of British defence attaché Brigadier Stephen Saunders, who was gunned down as he drove to work in Athens in June 2000.
The far-left terror group has also looted military arsenals, and fired or tried to fire anti-tank rockets at police and a British aircraft carrier.
Eleven of the 19 suspected members of the group’s Revolutionary Organisation on trial face life sentences if convicted by a panel of three judges. No jury will be present.
The trial is also expected to showcase Greece’s determination to deal with terrorist threats ahead of the 2004 Olympics.
The suspects – including a beekeeper and three sons of an Orthodox priest - are accused of being part of a group that has dodged police for 28 years.
Once Europe’s most elusive terrorist organisation, November 17 was eventually exposed after a bungled bomb attack last summer left one suspect seriously injured, triggering dozens of raids.
It is the first ever trial of a terrorist group in Greece since the fall of the seven-year military dictatorship in 1974.
Greek authorities had faced decades of American diplomatic pressure to crack down on the group, and more recently received advice from senior British anti-terrorism experts experienced in fighting the IRA.
November 17 is blamed for more than 100 bombings, a string of armed robberies and 23 murders.
Victims included American officials, Greek judges, politicians and powerful industrialists, as well as senior envoys from Britain and Turkey.
The trial will be held inside the Korydallos maximum security prison where most of the suspects are being held. The special courtroom, which includes a bullet-proof cage for the suspects – 18 men and one woman – was once used for the trial of the military dictators whose rule gave birth to November 17.
Due to last several months, the trial comes as a major relief to Greece’s Socialist government and security planners for next year’s Athens Olympics.
Senior American officials once charged that the Socialist party, in power for 19 of the past 22 years, was somehow harbouring November 17.
It also signals an end to decades of ugly political divisions in Greece rooted in the Cold War.
November 17 was the deadliest of several Greek militant groups to emerge in the mid-1970s after the collapse of a dictatorship which had received American support.
November 17 reportedly used an array of code words to refer to targets: “uglies” for police “no misters” for American soldiers “baskets” for bombs and “noses” for rockets.
The group was named after the date when the military dictators used tanks to crush a 1973 student uprising. November 17 first appeared with the 1975 murder of CIA station chief Richard Welch. Its latest victim was Brigadier Saunders.
