| Revolutionary Organization 17 November |
Index for Revolutionary |
Website Links For Revolutionary Organization 17 November |
Information AboutRevolutionary Organization 17 November |
|
N17 had perpetrated a series of attacks from 1975 . Until 2002 no member of the group had been identified or arrested. The group is named after the date 17 November , 1973 when the Athens Polytechnic Uprising took place against the Military Junta , in which at least twenty students were killed. The military junta was backed by the United States as part of that country's anti- Communist efforts. This motivated the newly founded Terrorist group to choose an American official for its first assassination. The group's first attack was in December 1975 , when the CIA 's Athens station chief Richard Welch was gunned down outside his home. The group committed further assassinations, often using a .45 caliber handgun or a .38 caliber pistol taken after they killed a policeman, in 1984. Initial attacks were aimed at American and Greek officials but the range of operations was expanded in the mid-1980s and 1990s to include bombings and EU targets. The group is also opposed to Turkey and the NATO . It is interesting to note that although it was an American CIA station chief who was initially targeted, most of the 103 attacks the group carried out over their 27 years campaign were directed against right-of-centre Greeks and Greek companies. Indeed, only 19 atacks were directed against US targets and 9 against Turks. While face to face assassination was sometimes their modus opperandi, the group used rockets and bombs on over 55 occasions, starting with an attack on a Greek police bus in which 14 were wounded and 1 killed. Other victims included Captain George Tsantes Jr , United States Navy and the head of JUSMAGG, who was shot dead with his Greek driver on the 15 November 1983 , one of Tsantes' successors, Captain William Nordeen U.S.N., whose car was destroyed by a car-bomb a few meters from his home, as he drove past it on 28 June 1988 , U.S. air force Sergeant Ronald O. Strong who was killed by a car bomb outside his home on 12 March [[1991 in an anti- Gulf War protest, Cetin Gorgu, a Turkish press attaché, who was shot in his car on 7 October 1991 , Omer Haluk Sipahioglu, a Turkish embassy official shot on an Athens street on 4 July 1994 , Anglo-Hellenic shipping tycoon Constantinos Peratikos, who was shot leaving his office on 28 May 1997 , and, as mentioned below, Brigadier Stephen Saunders on the 8 June 2000 . This list is by no means comprehensive. Usually, after an attack, 17N sent a communique to the newspaper Eleftherotypia . The group argued in its communiques that it wanted to rid Greece of U.S. bases , to remove the Turkish military from Cyprus , and to sever Greece's ties to the NATO and the European Union . In June 2000 , the group killed Stephen Saunders , a British Defence Attaché. His wife went on television urging the Greek people to help apprehend his killers. Following a failed bombing attempt on the Flying Dolphin company in Piraeus on June 29 , 2002 the Greek authorities captured an injured suspect, Savvas Xiros. A search of his person and an interrogation led to the discovery of two safe houses and to the arrest of a further six suspects, including two brothers of Savvas. A 58-year-old professor and economist, Alexandros Giotopoulos , was identified as the group leader and was arrested on July 17 on the island of Lipsi . On September 5 , Dimitris Koufodinas -identified as the group's chief of operations- surrendered to the authorities. In all, nineteen individuals were charged with some 2,500 offences relating to November 17 's activities. Because of the 20-year statute of limitations, killings before 1984 could not be tried by the court. The trial of the terrorist suspects commenced in Athens on March 3 , 2003 , with District Attorney Christos Lambrou serving as the prosecutor for the Greek state. On December 8 , fifteen of the accused, including A. Giotopoulos and D. Koufodinas, were found guilty; another four were acquitted for lack of evidence. The convicted members were sentenced on December 17 , with A. Giotopoulos sentenced to 21 Life Term s, the heaviest sentence in modern Greek legal history. Koufodinas received 13 life terms, Christodoulos Xeros receive 10 life terms, Savvas Xeros six, Vassilis Tzortzatos four, Iraklis Kostaris one. Lesser sentences were imposed for the remaining nine, in the light of extenuating circumstances. Defense lawyers of the defendants as well as several civil rights groups have stressed the special character of the trial. The trial was conducted by a special court with closed doors and the use of television cameras was prohibited. People sympathetic to their cause believe that this was so that it would be easier to condemn ''all'' the accused. Many of the accused, notably Alexandros Giotopoulos, denied their participation until the end of the year-long trial. According to Giotopoulos, he was framed so that the image of a terrorist organization led by a clear leader could be presented. The accused who did admit participation in the group, notably Dimitris Koufodinas who took "full political responsibility for all of the group's actions", presented a picture of a loose horizontally organized structure with small cells and decisions taken by discussion and consensus. Under Greek law, one life term is equal to a 25-year term and a convict may apply for parole after 16 years. If sentenced to more than one life term, he or she must serve at least 20 years before being eligible for parole. Other sentences will run concurrently, with 25-year terms being the maximum and with parole possible after three-fifths of this term are served. On September 17 , 2004 , the imprisoned claimed that they had started a hunger strike, protesting allegedly harsh conditions of imprisonment at the Korydallos prison. In statements which were characterized a publicity stunt by critics, they claimed that "bourgeois democracy" took revenge on them by enclosing them in "a prison within a prison." In response to these protests, the Greek minister of Justice satisfied their demands, such as that roof-top bars be removed from their "courtyard space" and the hunger strike came to an end. Links & resources
Articles
|