Golden Dawn leader charged with heading a criminal gang
Nikos Michaloliakos appears in court after he is arrested along with key members of his Greek neo-fascist party
Helena Smith in Athens
The Observer, Saturday 28 September 2013 19.41 BST
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The leader of Greece's Golden Dawn, widely viewed as Europe's most violent political force, appeared in court on Saturday night on charges of heading a criminal gang after police mounted an unprecedented crackdown on the neo-fascist party, arresting Nikos Michaloliakos and other key members of his organisation.
After a high-stakes police operation in which anti-terrorism officers stormed the homes of Golden Dawn politicians across Athens, Michaloliakos and five of his MPs were seized. Fourteen other senior Golden Dawn activists were taken into custody accused of fomenting violence as members of a criminal organisation.
The prime minister, Antonis Samaras, held emergency talks with his public order and justice ministers after the raids. Emerging from the discussion, the justice minister, Charalambos Athanasiou, insisted that those who had been arrested will face "just justice".
"Justice has moved with decisiveness and transparency," he told reporters gathered outside the prime minister's city-centre office. "I want to say for all those who have been arrested, if they are sent to trial there will be just justice."
Authorities said 25 counter-terrorism units were trying to track down two other politicians almost nine hours after Michaloliakos was arrested in his Athens home at 7am. Greek media quoted the politician as telling police: "What you are doing is not right. The truth will shine," as he was taken into custody in handcuffs. Hundreds of Golden Dawn supporters, many wearing the party's de rigueur black T-shirts, gathered outside Athens's police headquarters spurred on by a text message reportedly sent by the party to "support our moral and just struggle against the corrupt system".
Michaloliakos and his chief lieutenant, the party's spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, were inside the building as the supporters massed. Only on Friday, Kasidiaris, who became infamous with an assault on two female leftwing MPs during a live television debate last year, had openly joked that "we are here to hand ourselves in", as the party launched a lawsuit against Pasok, the junior leftwing party in Samaras's fragile coalition. Police officials said a number of weapons had also been discovered in the crackdown. Three unlicensed guns allegedly found in Michaloliakos's suburban home were to undergo ballistics tests, and tens of thousands of euros were also apparently found, the media reported.
Greece's third biggest party, Golden Dawn, has seen its popularity soar on the back of desperation and despair, becoming Europe's most extreme rightwing political force in the process. The group is accused of making violence its calling card, and human rights groups hold it responsible for hundreds of attacks on dark-skinned immigrants in the three years since the debt-stricken country plunged into crisis.
Since being elected to parliament for the first time in June last year with 7% of the popular vote, the party has been linked to a wave of violence directed mostly against migrants, gay people and leftists on Greece's increasingly fractious political scene. The fatal stabbing this month of Pavlos Fyssas, a hip-hop star popular among anti-fascists, prompted widespread outrage and galvanised the governing coalition into taking action.
Amid revelations that Golden Dawn had set up hit squads with the help of commandos in the special forces and openly colluded with the police, the authorities launched a far-reaching inquiry into the group's activities.
Two senior police generals resigned and several officers were suspended after allegations of links with the party. More than a dozen Golden Dawn members, including the 45-year-old man who confessed to murdering Fyssas, were rounded up.
Not since the collapse of military rule have MPs been arrested en masse. "This is without precedent in Greek political life," said a professor of constitutional law, Kostas Chrysogonos. "Authorities are acting within the law, but I also think it would have been constitutionally more correct if they had asked parliament to lift their [MPs'] political immunity first."
Even if the politicians are imprisoned pending trial, they will still retain their standing as MPs, experts said.
This week Kasidiaris told a TV show that "they can arrest us, they can put us in prison, but we will still be MPs. We are not going to go back even one step."
Although Samaras's shaky coalition has been applauded for its tough stance – with opinion polls showing a drop in support for Golden Dawn and a slight rise for his own conservative New Democracy party – there are fears that the crackdown could ultimately damage the government.
The opposition leader, Alexis Tsipras, of the radical left Syriza party, gave voice to those fears last week, saying the party should be confronted "within the law, not outside it".
Before the crackdown Golden Dawn was polling at around 15%, prompting it to boast it had "more than a million" supporters in the crisis-hit nation.
Earlier last week Michaloliakos had warned that he might withdraw his 18-strong parliamentary group from Greece's 300-seat parliament — a move that could unleash political instability in a country dependent on international rescue funds to survive.
The politician had also said that what he described as "mudslinging and slander" against his party would "open the gates of hell".
