Presiding judge Maria Lepenioti announces the sentences during the trial of leaders and members of the Golden Dawn far-right party. At the end of a historic hearing likened to the Nuremberg trials after the second world war, the neo-Nazi leaders of Golden Dawn have been sentenced to 13 years in prison by a court in Athens. The violent Greek neo-fascist group was officially laid to rest as its disgraced former MPs were shown almost no remorse by a three-member panel of judges. Presiding judge Maria Lepenioti read out the sentences less than a week after the court’s landmark ruling that Golden Dawn lawmakers had operated a criminal organisation under the guise of being a democratically elected party. On Tuesday a public prosecutor proposed lengthy prison terms for 57 of the original 68 defendants convicted of murder, assault, weapons possession and either running or participating in the criminal gang. The court, which dismissed pleas for leniency in all but four cases, recessed following the announcement to deliberate on whether the sentences would be suspended pending appeal.
Under Greece’s penal code, revised by the former leftist government of the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, the maximum prison sentence for the crime of heading a criminal organisation is 15 years. Thanasis Kampagiannis, a lawyer who represented four Egyptian fishermen brutally attacked by the fascist group, described the suspensions as being “critical for the vindication of the victims” and how the trial will ultimately be assessed. But with anti-terrorist squads poised to round up Golden Dawn’s founder, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, and six of his top lieutenants, observers believe it is only a matter of time before the party’s core leadership is jailed. If, as is likely, that does happen, at 62 Michaloliakos will spend the next 13 years behind bars, for not only masterminding the organisation’s criminal activities as its self-appointed Führer but for turning what was once a fringe Nazi movement into a political force whose modus operandi was the brutal eradication of enemies by Golden Dawn hit squads. Leftists, anti-nationalist traitors, communist trade unionists, members of the LGBTQ community, migrants and refugees were all targeted by the far-right group from its inception in the early 1980s through to 2012 when, riding a wave of economic anger and despair, it began its seven-year stint in parliament.
via guardian: Neo-Nazi leaders of Greece’s Golden Dawn sentenced to 13 years
siehe auch: Rechtsextreme Goldene Morgenröte: Lange Haftstrafen für Parteiführung. Bereits vergangene Woche hatte das Gericht die Führung der rechtsextremen griechischen Partei Goldene Morgenröte für schuldig gesprochen, eine kriminelle Vereinigung gegründet zu haben. Nun ist sie zu hohen Gefängnisstrafen verurteilt worden. So wurde etwa der Anführer der Partei zu 13 Jahren Haft verurteilt. (…) Ein Parteianhänger wurde zu einer lebenslänglichen Strafe verurteilt. Er hatte 2013 einen linken Rapper erstochen und es gestanden. Weitere 15 Parteimitglieder wurden wegen Mittäterschaft zu dieser Tat zu Haftstrafen zwischen sechs und sieben Jahren verurteilt.