07 October 2020
At the end of a five year trial, a Greek court has found senior members of neo-fascist party Golden Dawn guilty of running a criminal organisation. Party members were also found guilty of the 2013 murder of the rapper Pavlos Fyssas, physical attacks on trade unionists and the attempted murder of a fisherman.
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Greece: Golden Dawn found guilty of running criminal organisation (Al Jazeera, link):
"The Golden Dawn group, a self-proclaimed fascist entity with its origins in the 1980s, has been found guilty of several crimes by a court in Athens, including running a criminal organisation.
Another prominent case involved Golden Dawn supporter Giorgos Roupakias who had confessed to murdering anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, or “Killah P”, stabbing the 34-year-old to death just after midnight on September 18, 2013, in Athens. Roupakias was found guilty and faces a life sentence.
The prosecutions were sparked by the murder of Fyssas.
“Pavlos, you did it!” the rapper’s mother Magda shouted outside the courthouse after the verdict was announced, her hands raised in triumph. She had attended most of the hearing’s 453 sessions.
(...)
The courtroom and more than 10,000 anti-racism protesters outside the courthouse, who had been demanding a guilty verdict for hours before the result was announced, cheered when the judges revealed their decision.
But the mood turned sour as police were quick to release tear gas and use water cannon to disperse crowds. Witnesses said people were seen gasping as the tear gas filled the air."
68 members of the party were on trial. It has been reported elsewhere that the police themselves estimated that some 15,000 people were in fact present at an anti-fascist protest outside the court. See: Turmoil in Athens as neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn handed landmark criminal convictions (The Telegraph, link)
An account by one of the lawyers acting on behalf of some of the victims, published before the verdict was handed down, gives more detail on the trial. See: Greece’s Golden Dawn Aren’t Just Nazis — They’re Violent Mafiosi, Too (Jacobin, link)
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