![]() and there was no evidence, no DNA, that showed my in any action." One man punched the air screaming: "As long as the English kill in their tanks they will not sleep well at night."Ī defiant Giotopoulos denounced the hearing as a travesty of justice: "The entire process proved there was no leader. The British defence attache was shot in a traffic jam on his way to work at the UK's embassy in Athens.Īs the defendants were led away, the cries of supporters shouting "freedom for the fighters" filled the special prison courtroom on the outskirts of Athens. A schoolteacher who had turned himself in received a suspended 25-year sentence.īecause of a 20-year statute of limitations, none of the members was prosecuted for the group's four earliest crimes, including the gunning down of its first victim, the CIA chief Richard Welch, outside his home in 1975.īut four, including Giotopoulos and Koufodinas, received life sentences for the murder in June 2000 of Brigadier Stephen Saunders. ![]() ![]() Twelve other convicted members were jailed for from eight years to life. The gang's founder, Alexandros Giotopoulos, received 21 life terms, the longest sentence in Greek legal history.ĭimitris Koufodinas, its chief assassin, known as "poison hand" for his skills with a pistol, got 15 life sentences. It was named after the student uprising that triggered the collapse of the colonels' regime in 1974. Once seen as Europe's most elusive terror cell, November 17 murdered 23 people - including US and Turkish diplomats, Greek businessmen, judges and junta-era officials - in a campaign that lasted nearly three decades.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |