Golden Dawn Leaders Sentenced to Prison

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An Athens court sentenced the leadership of Greece’s Golden Dawn party to 13 years in prison on Wednesday, a week after declaring the neo-fascist party a criminal organization in a landmark verdict that wrapped up one of the most important political trials in the country’s modern history.

Last week, the court convicted the party leaders of crimes related to a campaign of attacks against migrants and leftist critics in 2012 and 2013. At the end of a trial that lasted more than five years, the party was tied to a string of attacks, including the fatal stabbing in 2013 of a left-wing rapper, Pavlos Fyssas.

Giorgos Roupakias, a party member convicted of murdering Mr. Fyssas, received the harshest sentence, life plus 10 years. The court could still suspend some of the sentences.

The convictions were widely seen in Greece as a final blow to Golden Dawn, which failed to re-enter Parliament in general elections last year as the trial gradually eroded its popularity. And the outcome has already spurred political upheaval. …

Golden Dawn’s leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, testifying in an Athens court in November.
Credit…Aris Messinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In addition to Mr. Roupakias’s conviction, five other party supporters or members were found guilty of the attempted murders of three Egyptian fishermen in 2012. Four others were convicted of causing bodily harm in assaults on members of Greece’s Communist Party trade union in 2013.

Mr. Michaloliakos and five other former members of Parliament for Golden Dawn were all sentenced to 13 years in prison. One other former lawmaker who was among the party leaders was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The group’s remaining 11 former lawmakers to be sentenced received prison terms of five to seven years.

Before the sentences, defense attorneys had urged the court to consider mitigating circumstances, citing good character, lawful behavior and, in some cases, their clients’ marriages to foreign women.

After the sentences were announced, the court was to deliberate on whether to suspend any of them, a decision that may not come until Thursday. If the court deems any of those convicted not to be a flight risk, it might allow their sentences to be suspended pending the outcome of their appeals.

Golden Dawn’s fall was as spectacular as its rise. It was catapulted from obscurity into the front line of Greek politics at the peak of the country’s financial crisis in 2012-2013 by tapping into public discontent over austerity measures and a growing influx of migrants.

In spite of Golden Dawn’s dramatic decline, neo-Nazism in Greece has not disappeared. Former members of Parliament, including Ilias Kasidiaris, Golden Dawn’s onetime spokesman, have formed parties that embrace similar views.

A memorial at the site where the rapper Pavlos Fyssas was stabbed in 2013. A Golden Dawn member was found guilty of the murder on Wednesday.
Credit…Yorgos Karahalis/Associated Press

Less extreme right-wing parties have also sprung up, including the nationalist Greek Solution.

In a post on Twitter last week, Mr. Michaloliakos, the party’s leader, said Greeks would remember Golden Dawn “when illegal immigrants are the majority in Greece, when they concede earth and water to Turkey, when millions of Greeks are unemployed on the streets.”

He was referring to arrivals of migrants from Turkey and a recent political crisis between the two neighbors over longstanding territorial disagreements and corresponding energy rights.

Mr. Michaloliakos insisted that the party was the victim of a witch hunt. …

6 replies
  1. Fenria
    Fenria says:

    Meanwhile in Turkey, the Turkish equivalent of Golden Dawn is in power, has been in power, and will continue to be in power. No one finds it strange, and certainly, no one is foolish enough to suggest some open society alternative to it, or march in the streets over any of its perceived abuses. This is the difference between whites and non whites. Whites continue to have this burning need to convince everyone else of our moral highground saintliness. Non whites don’t care. Non whites understand that the tragedy of commons tips in the favor of those who put all their weight on the desirable side of the scale, and make no compromises or sacrifices.

    • moneytalks
      moneytalks says:

      The RCC Vatican likely has the greatest liability for promoting and thereby brainwashing/programming too many Westernworld Whites into believing a completely unsubstantiated notion that there are ABSOLUTE moral laws decreed by God where “absolute” means [ no exceptions ] and that there are UNIVERSAL moral laws decreed by God where “universal” means [ the exact same law is acknowledged by all of humanity everywhere in the world ] ; or promoting the corollary belief that The RCC proclaimed renditions of those presumed ABSOLUTE and/or UNIVERSAL moral laws are in fact the divine laws of God even where they are not unequivocally accepted as rendered .

      Moreover , the religious belief that strict adherence to a historicly temporally defined moral code is the ultimate goal of life in order to score points for being selected , by God/JC , to live in heaven forever ( after you die ) is implicated in more than just a little bit of worldly chaos , strife and slaughtering of humanity .

      The new religion of

      {{{ The PRIME DIRECTIVE }}}

      asserts that the ultimate goal-of-life is to have FUN

      which is defined to mostly mean pleasures/enjoyments/thrills
      as they are understood by the vast majority of normal people .

      Therefore , altho moral codes are important they can be judiciously modified ad hoc in order to accommodate the pursuit of FUN as defined and not in provably egregious opposition or provably detrimental to any others pursuit of FUN . In other words , merely claiming pschological distress , caused by anyone not following your dearly held particular moral code , would not ipso facto be a provable detriment to your pursuit of FUN .

      • Pierre de Craon
        Pierre de Craon says:

        Your brothers under the skin in antifa say/shout most of the same things in much the same way. They also share your disdain for internal consistency.

  2. Pierre de Craon
    Pierre de Craon says:

    Eight years ago I believed that Golden Dawn might represent just that for a Greece struggling to retain its identity in the face of a democidal invasion orchestrated by (((people))) who made Darius and Xerxes seem beneficent by comparison. I thought that Greek resistance might even kickstart continent-wide resistance to immigration throughout Europe. I should have known better.

  3. Morris Man
    Morris Man says:

    Greece—once conquered by the Romans, then conquered by the Turks, now conquered by their own stupidity.

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