Court sentences leaders of Greece’s Golden Dawn to prison

ATHENS, GREECE

An Athens court sentenced the leaders of Greece’s Golden Dawn party to 13 years in prison 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 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 lost all of its seats in Parliament in general elections last year, as the trial gradually eroded its popularity — although the sentences fell short of what some observers and opponents had been expecting.

The sentences “do not seem to me as appropriately severe as one might have expected,” said Seraphim Seferiades, an associate professor of politics and history at Panteion University in Athens.

Many of the group’s opponents jubilantly posted on Twitter under a hashtag in Greek that translates to “jail the Nazis.” In English, #jail– golden–dawn was trending, too. But there was also disappointment that the court did not impose the maximum of 15 years in prison for leading a criminal organization.

In all, the court convicted 50 people of membership in a criminal organization — 18 of them former politicians for Golden Dawn, including its leader, Nikos Michaloliakos.

In addition to Roupakias’ 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.

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 other 11 former lawmakers received prison terms of five to seven years.