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Anastasia Balezdrova

Athens prosecutors completed the indictment against the six men arrested last Saturday for acts of terrorism. The new charges relate to the weapons and explosives that the anti-terrorism services found in the apartments the accused used as hiding places and that were not included in the initial indictment. Another 100 pages of new information and data were submitted to the court. The indictment, however, does not indicate the terrorist acts in which the defendants are believed to have been involved.

The six arrested were taken to the judicial magistrate at the Athens court. About 80 relatives, friends and supporters who had gathered early met them with applause and slogans of support. The car convoy arrived under tight security measures but some young people still managed to come closer to the armoured cars and to show the arrested that they were there to support them. When they went out of their cars, some of the six managed to raise their hands and clinch their fists which excited those who gathered there.

While the special riot forces tried to push them back the men from the anti-terrorist services took the six accused to the courthouse so quickly that one of them stumbled and almost fell, causing a new burst of protest cries against the police. Chants continued for a long time. Gradually, the police pushed the group to the side of the building, but some managed to come back from the rear, where they met the special forces.

Sources from the court told that two of the detainees, Konstantinos Mitrusias and Alexandros Sakas, will testify officially and the remaining four had requested and were allowed to testify on Thursday. Alexandros Mitrusias and George Karaianidis who have old arrest warrants issued for their participation in the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei will sit at the dock on January 17 together with the other defendants in this case.

The anti-terrorist services are searching another 12 people in Athens, Patras and other cities after the capture of Konstantinos Sakas, Alexandros Mitrusias, George Karaianidis, Christos Politis, Dimitris Mihail and Stiliani Antonio last Saturday. They consider from the services that the four storage quarters for weapons in the Athens neighbourhoods of Nea Smirni and Kallithea, Piraeus and the city of Agrinio may not relate to the Sect of Revolutionaries and it is possible the hiding place of the organization to have not been found yet.

This became clear from the comparison the experts made between the weapons found on Saturday and those in the photo sent by the terrorist organization with the manifesto in which its members took the responsibility for the murder of the journalist Sokratis Giolias in July this year. The anti-terrorist service is searching information about the supplier of the arms arsenal in criminal circles. According to some officers, ‘it looks as if someone had given the Sect of Revolutionaries and Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei the same weapons. We are talking about the same number and type of weapons, as if someone did not want to ... put any of the groups at a disadvantage, but to equally support them.’

The attention of the police is directed to:
Find another 12 people suspected of being members of both groups. The observation of the six arrested showed that they had contacts with 4-5 people, including two women belonging to the anarchic circles in Athens and Patras. Four members of the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei are wanted since September 2009, when the hiding place of the group was found in the Athens suburb of Halandri. In addition, the anti-terrorist service investigates three people aged 30-35 years who are considered to be linking the two groups. There is investigation running on the 25 fake ID cards that were found in the USB device, owned by one of the arrested. The USB memory contained also found stamps and fingerprints of unknown persons who were used for making fake IDs. The police believe that this was how the group rented the apartments. Last night the anti-terrorist service searched an apartment in the Athens suburb of Glyfada, that was rented by the arrested George Karaianidis with one of the fake IDs found seven months ago. No weapons were found, but only computers, fingerprints and DNA to be tested in police laboratories.

The fact is that there are differences between the weapons found in the four hiding places and those in the photo sent by the Sect of Revolutionaries. At least 14 of the 17 weapons from the arsenal of the group are different from those that were found on Saturday. It was known that the organization has three Chinese-made Kalashnikov automats without attachments. Two of the three Kalashnikovs, which were found with the six arrested, are produced in Bulgaria and the third is Chinese but is equipped with a bayonet. The picture showed gun type CZ 100 but three days ago were found CZ 83 and other weapons like Makarov, Star (most likely stolen, with external damages as if it was buried), an American Glock (probably stolen) and a small gun of unknown origin that did not exist in the arsenal of the Sect. The only weapons that are similar in both cases are the Scorpio machine-gun and the two Glock pistols. But their ballistics examination showed that they are ‘clean.’ It also became clear that all the three weapons that were found in the city of Agrinio were not used in terrorist acts. The police, however, investigate how they might have been used in other criminal acts of armed bank robbery looting tens of thousands of euros that were held in western Greece in recent months.