A Greek lawmaker sought by police surrendered on Sunday, bringing to six the number of legislators from the extreme-right Golden Dawn party now in custody and facing criminal charges.
Christos Pappas — a lawmaker described by prosecutors as the Golden Dawn’s No. 2 official — was formally charged with membership in a criminal organization with intent to commit crimes, like his five fellow legislators, including Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos.
Besides the six lawmakers, another 14 Golden Dawn members and two police officers have been arrested and charged with the same crimes. Another 10 suspects, for whom arrest warrants were issued Saturday, are still at large, officials said.
They’ve been gathering the goods.
The prosecution was made possible by a report from a Supreme Court prosecutor, Haralambos Vourliotis. The report lays out the allegations against the Golden Dawn leadership, including murder, attempted murder, carrying out explosions, possessing explosives and robbery.
The prosecutor’s report says that from the moment Golden Dawn was founded, in 1987, as a neo-Nazi organization, the party structure was paralleled by a military-type operational force whose trained members attacked people, mainly immigrants, based on the party’s ideology. The strict hierarchical structure meant the party leadership knew of every local attack and commands flew from the top to local chapters, the report says.
The recurring lust for fascism.
FIFY
Shockingly, a search of his house in northwest Greece found a framed picture of Hitler. Who would’ve thought?
Ophelia – are you upset that PZ is calling people like you racist and bigoted?
You know, I’ll probably regret this but… what in the world are you talking about @BamberGasgoine?
besomyka, the people who like to sling faeces at FTB feel they have no need to provide documentay proof for their wild assertions.
But … but…. they assured us again and again that they are not Neo-Nazis. Could they have been lying all this time?
In any case, it was way past time that Golden Dawn members were arrested for all the crimes they have committed. I hope we have a real thorough investigation and all the guilty people go to trial.
@BamberGasgoine, first I think you are making stuff up and second, you are trying to change the topic of conversation. I am very suspicious of people that are trying to distract from an article showing Neo-Nazis as the criminal thugs they are.
Seriously. Of all the threads for one of the slime socks to do its regular drive-by neenerneener whatthefuckamItalking about, this thread is a particularly shitty one to derail for that purpose.
I apologize for my part in that derailing. I feel like I’m that Dog in UP. The distraction was just too tempting in the moment. *sigh*
Seriously, I’m a little surprised and quite glad that the government of Greece took action. I was worried that they’d get so ingrained into the official processes that it’d become difficult to remove them.
Riiiiight. Totes NOT neo-nazis. That is why their English website until about 2001 at least listed them a part of the “National Socialist Movement”. How dare people say such a thing!
To be fair, they never explicitly said “we are not neo-nazis”. They would simply be asked “are you a neo-nazi political party” (normally a yes/no question) and they would respond “we are Greek nationalists”.
What I’m waiting for is to see the actual complaint that the prosecutor put together. Because it hasn’t been published (not unusual when there’s non-politicians involved) all the media has been reporting is leaked tidbits and phone trees from the night of the recent murder. The only thing worse than letting these guys roam free is making a crap case against them in a court of law.
Oh, no need to apologize, besomyka. The comment shouldn’t go unanswered. It’s the jerk who made it who’s responsible for the derail, not the people who replied.
This just baffles me. I guess the social issues in Greece might give some opportunity for a charismatic fascist to exploit, but these guys forgot that you have to build popular support first and be near the top of the power rung before you can start murdering your enemies. Glad they’re basically inept.
The problem is that there has been a segment of the population that is supportive to varying degrees. For instance people who thought the 1967-74 junta was a good thing (which Pappas’ father was a leader in). The Golden Dawn leadership are particularly fond of our 1930’s dictator Metaxas. Let us not forget that Golden Dawn did get 7% of the vote a year ago and would have likely gotten 11-12% a month ago if another was held. So yes, you are touching on a deeper problem that they are exploiting.
I think I know the Pharyngula post they must have been thinking of, since PZ’s only called one person a racist this week, but it doesn’t make any sense at all in this context. (I’d link it, but nertz if I’m going to do the lazy jerk’s work for him, I do enough of that when I’m getting paid.)