ATHENS,
December 8 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A Greek court
Monday, December 8, delivered its verdict in the mammoth trial of the
terrorist November 17 group, finding 15 people guilty of involvement
in its 27-year history of bombings and attacks that rocked Greece.
The
group has been blamed for a total of 88 attacks, including the murder
of British military attaché Stephen Saunders in June 2000 and the CIA
station chief in Athens in December 1975, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
Among
those convicted was the ringleader of the radical leftist group,
Alexandros Yiotopoulos, 59, who was found guilty of planning and
authorizing all of November 17 's subversive actions, adding up to
some 2,000 separate crimes, according to AFP.
Yiotopoulos,
a French-born economist who worked as a translator, faces a sentence
of life in prison.
Fourteen
other defendants were convicted and four were cleared of charges in
the nine-month trial of 19 alleged leaders of November 17.
Angeliki
Sotiropoulou, 40, the only female defendant, Yiannis Serifis, 65, a
well-known trade union activist, Anestis Papanastassiou, a 41-year old
bank clerk and the cousin of alleged founding member Nikos
Papanastassiou and Theologos Psaradellis, 60, a Trotskyite activist,
were freed.
But
Yiotopoulos maintained his innocence until the end, saying Monday
after the verdict was read out: "The decision is unfounded. I was
condemned in advance."
Aside
from Yiotopoulos, five other militants face life imprisonment,
including the group's alleged chief of operations, beekeeper Dimitris
Koufontinas, 45, and Savvas Xiros, son of a Greek Orthodox priest and
a painter of religious icons who was also allegedly one of the group's
major hit men.
"We're
not interested in the court's verdict, we're interested in the
people's verdict," Koufontinas was quoted as saying by the Athens
News Agency (ANA).
Sentences
for the 15 militants are expected to be handed down next week after
prosecutors present their requests Wednesday.
Terror
Record
The
19 defendants faced more than 2,000 charges for 19 assassinations of
Greek, U.S., British and Turkish diplomats, army officers,
politicians, businessmen and judges, dozens of bomb and rocket attacks
and robberies.
Yiotopoulos
was found guilty of having instigated and planned every November 17
attacks for which charges had been pressed.
Four
defendants including Yiotopoulos were found guilty of assassinating
Saunders, the group's last in a string of 23 murders since 1975.
Saunders
was shot in his car June 8, 2000 while driving to work. Two men riding
on a motorbike rode up alongside his car and shot him with a revolver
and an army rifle.
A
20-year statute of limitations prevented the court from looking into
four murders committed between Christmas 1975, when the group burst on
the scene with the assassination of CIA Athens station chief Richard
Welch, and 1983.
The
group, named after a 1973 student uprising against Greece's 1967-1974
junta, was a major thorn in the side of Greek authorities anxious to
prove they had security under control ahead of the Athens 2004
Olympics.
