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Anastasia Balezdrova

Each passing day, the findings following the unsuccessful bank robbery in the village of Velvendo near Kozani are unravelling the ball of terrorism, showing the connection between the events that have taken place over the last five years.

According to police authorities, the youngest among the captured attackers, Nikos Romanos, was a friend of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, who had been killed by a police bullet on 6 December 2008. The murder was followed by unprecedented violent protests during which dozens of buildings and shops in the centre of Athens were burned and destroyed. Nikos, who was 15 at that time, was a direct witness to the death of his friend, which obviously has largely predetermined his next steps.

However, the age of the 19-year-old terrorist, who was charged yesterday with involvement in the "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei" group after comparing his DNA with the biological material that had been found earlier in two of the hiding places of the organization, is not the most interesting part of his identity. Nikos, who was born on 27 January 1993 in Athens, is the son of writer Pavlina Nasiutzik who is the daughter of businessman Athanasios Nasiutzik.

"My motives were political. I consider myself a prisoner of war. I do not consider myself a victim. I will not file a complaint against the policemen who beat me. I want the beating on me to awaken the minds of citizens. I accept only the charge of committing a robbery. I will make a political statement, because no one else except me can express my position".

Nikos like Alexis grew up in the rich northern suburbs of Athens and studied at prestigious private schools, and the last thing anyone would have expected to happen to him would be his involvement in terrorist groups. On the other hand, the course of his life should not surprise anyone, because he had expressed his opposition to the "system" from very early on. The first public manifestation of his intolerance was his refusal to appear as a witness in the case of policeman Epaminondas Korkoneas, who was under trial for the murder of Grigoropoulos. Instead, he had sent a letter to the media stating that the case did not interest him and defining his choice not to appear in the procedures specified by the institutions as a political choice.

He followed the same tactics today. The young man, whom the police have been investigating for involvement in the terrorist group "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei", made through his lawyer a public statement, describing himself as a "prisoner of war".

"My motives were political. I consider myself a prisoner of war. I do not consider myself a victim. I will not file a complaint against the policemen who beat me. I want the beating on me to awaken the minds of citizens. I accept only the charge of committing a robbery. I will make a political statement, because no one else except me can express my position".

photocollage: ethnos.gr

Ioannis Michailidis, aged 25, is the most well known to the public among those who were captured in Velvendo. He is the so-called "shooter in Syntagma". He became known by that name after the protest procession on 4 February 2011, when he was arrested for archery in the square in front of the Greek Parliament. He was afterwards released and banned from leaving the country. A few months later, in late 2011, an arrest warrant was issued against Michailidis for his involvement in the "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei".

He has been out of the sight of the authorities ever since. He left his home in the Athens district of Holargos, which is located near the luxurious northern suburbs, interrupted his studies and went underground. He "appeared" for the last time on the Indymedia web site, which is known for its connection with the anarchist circles, to deny his involvement in the armed robbery of a bank on the island of Paros last summer.

Three arrest warrants for involvement in the same terrorist group against the third of the captured persons- Dimitris Politis - were pending. The young man was born in 1991, he is from the Holargos neighbourhood too and a member of the so-called "Holargos company". According to the authorities, he was a close friend of Michailidis and his role was ancillary at least at the time when the "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei" started its activity.

His name appeared for the first time in the media when the police announced that Politis had rented the hiding place of the organization in the metropolitan district of Kallithea using a fake identity card. The authorities believe he was involved in the bloody assault in front of the police station in the suburb of Pfvki , where his follower and roommate Theodoros Mavropoulos was wounded. Dimitris Politis and Michailidis denied several times their involvement in the "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei" through the web site previously mentioned.

Politis was a student at the University of the Aegean on the island of Lesbos along with the fourth of the persons captured on Friday, namely  Andreas - Dimitris Bourzoukous. He was born in 1989 and he is from the Holargos neighbourhood too. His father is a retired icon painter and his mother is a doctor in the emergency ward.

In the words of the father, Andreas "is an anarchist by ideology, but has nothing to do with terrorism. He is an anarchist, as is our entire family. He has nothing to do with terrorism. Even when I saw him yesterday, he said, "I do not believe that they said that I had something to do with the "nuclei". When I told him that the allegations state this, he literally exploded", he told Ethnos newspaper.

The fact that his son and his associates used an arsenal of heavy weapons during the robbery in Velvendo does not seem to bother Andreas’ father. "They had these weapons for intimidation. I do not think my son can use a weapon. When this happened in Paros (the armed robbery, during which a taxi driver was killed – author’s note), Andreas told me that the attackers were idiots. If you have an ideology and kill even one man, you actually renounce your ideology. These were his words".

Andreas's sister, Angeliki Bourzoukous was a witness in the first trial against members of "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei". She and her brother said then that the police had been watching their family. According to the latest data, Andreas’ fingerprints were found in the group's hiding place that had been revealed in the Athens suburb of Halandri in 2009.

Today, Ioannis Michailidis and Dimitris Politis have been transported to Athens to appear before the public prosecutor in connection with the old arrest warrants issued against them. Right after that, they will be returned to Kozani, where they along with Nikos Romanos and Andreas - Dimitris Bourzoukous will appear before the magistrate on Wednesday in connection with the robbery in Velvendo.

Special police forces have been investigating the region of Kozani in order to find the other participants in the bank robbery, who escaped by the jeep of the hostage dentist. According to them, the terrorists are likely to be hiding in the Vermio Mountain, where winter weather conditions are severe. Therefore, they think that finding them is a matter of time.

The chain of events has not yet ended. The links are being made one after another, explaining previous attacks including the most recent one on "The Mall Athens".

Since last night, members of the anti-terrorist forces have been investigating a flat in the Maroussi neighbourhood, not far from the target of the bombing. Sources say that the friend of the murdered Alexis, Nikos Romanos, rented the flat about a month ago, using a fake identity card for the purpose. Authorities believe that the flat was the hiding place of the members of the "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei".

Photo: ethnos.gr

So far, a large number of fired cartridges, evidence of falsification of private documents and two multifunctional printing devices have been found in the flat. Although no weapons and manifestos have been found, the police do not exclude the possibility of the people who put the bomb in the shopping centre having left and returned to this particular flat.

According to sources, the authorities found the flat due to the publication of the attackers’ photographs. They uploaded them on the official web site of the police on the orders of the prosecutor.

They have scars of beating on them, which has provoked new debates. The main opposition SYRIZA party issued a message, accusing the police of exercising violence against detainees. The Minister of Citizen Protection Nikos Dendias responded very clearly by saying that the police had exercised the necessary and perfectly legitimate violence to block, disarm and make harmless the heavily armed attackers. However, SYRIZA, the Communist Party and the partner in the ruling coalition, the Democratic Left, are demanding an investigation of the case.

The issue has provoked fierce debate in the social media as well. Part of the Greek society, which sees the actions of the authorities as attempts to limit and why not destroy this type of terrorism, defines the reactions of leftist parties as hypocrisy. Their supporters, who interpreted the destruction in December 2008 as a "Youth Revolution", oppose the "police brutality". However, they have not been able to explain to this day what the murder of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos , who was also a child brought up in wealth and not deprived of anything and who "drove" them to cause the devastation of downtown Athens, had "unlocked" in them.

Liberals and those who claim to belong to the political centre also oppose the beating by the police. The debates and especially the extreme and firm positions are more than indicative of the way part of the Greek society perceives the "activity" of the "rebel youth".

The Athens prosecutor's office has ordered an investigation in connection with the allegations of unlawful exercise of violence by the police. It is worth noting that at least two of the defenders of the attackers in Velvendo defended some of the defendants accused of involvement in the "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei".