Former deputy leader of ultra-right Golden Dawn party arrested in Athens
ATHENS, July 2– Christos Pappas, former deputy leader of the far-right Golden Dawn party, was arrested here on Thursday evening, the Greek national news agency AMNA reported. Pappas, 59, had been on the run and wanted after an Athens court reached a verdict in October 2020. “With the arrest of Christos Pappas, the final chapter of the criminal organization has closed,”…
ATHENS, July 2 (Xinhua) — Christos Pappas, former deputy leader of the far-right Golden Dawn (GD) party, was arrested here on Thursday evening, the Greek national news agency AMNA reported.
Pappas, 59, had been on the run and wanted after an Athens court reached a verdict in October 2020. He was sentenced to 11 years and 9 months along with other party leaders for forming and running a criminal organization, according to an e-mailed Greek police press release. He had also been the last former GD leader remaining at large.
Pappas was arrested during a raid by a counter-terrorism squad in a 52-year-old woman’s residence and both of them were scheduled to appear before prosecutors on Friday, according to the press statement.
More than a dozen former MPs among a total of 57 party members are serving sentences for their crimes committed during the period of 2008-2013, ranging from murder to extortion and possession of illegal weapons. The GD’s leadership and members were linked to dozens of assaults against migrants and political opponents.
The fatal stabbing of Pavlos Fyssas, a 34-year-old Greek anti-fascist activist musician, by a GD supporter, at a Piraeus port suburb in autumn 2013, sent shockwaves across the country and triggered a judicial crackdown on GD.
The party, represented in parliament in the period 2012-2019, was de facto dismantled after the verdict.
“With the arrest of Christos Pappas, the final chapter of the criminal organization has closed,” Greek government spokeswoman Aristotelia Peloni said in an e-mailed statement in a first reaction to the arrest. Enditem
