Golden Dawn Trial: What the Five-Member Court of Criminal Appeals will consider today

The second hearing of her trial Golden Dawn before the Five-Judge Court of Criminal Appeals begins this morning, when it is estimated that the court will give its answer to two critical issues raised at the start of the proceedings, on June 15.

The first and basic issue on which the court is asked to decide is request for postponement of the trial raised by the advocates of the leader of the organization Nikos Michaloliakos. The defense of the Golden Dawn leader sentenced to 13 years in prison, after he stated that Nikos Michaloliakos was absent for health reasons, as he had been hospitalized with covid for two months in the intensive care unit and now is in a rehabilitation center, raised an issue with the service of the summons on its principal stating that it was not legally served.

“Theoretically he was court-appointed while in the ICU and had loss of consciousness, visual and auditory hallucinations. He doesn’t even have the decision of the first instance court, he doesn’t know why he is on trial.” said one of the defense lawyers who asked for the postponement of the trial so that the detained hospitalized patient could be legally summoned.

The second and serious issue raised by defendants and awaiting the response of the members of the court is the total four requests for suspension of execution of the sentence which were submitted “on the eve” of the opening of the appellate trial for the criminal organization. The MEP was the first to submit a request to be released from prison Ioannis Lagos, a prisoner of Domokos prisons with a sentence of 13 years and 8 months, who after declaring himself a “political prisoner” asked to be released so that he could perform his duties in the European Parliament. The requests of Hopeful Kalaritis and Giorgos Stampelos, sentenced to 9 years in prison each for complicity in the murder of Pavlos Fyssas and for participation in a criminal organization and the “nuclear leader” Peramas Anastasios Pantazis, sentenced to 10 years and 24 months in prison for joining, attempted murder against the Egyptian fisherman Abuzid Ebarak and for the attack on PAME. The defendants cited family and financial problems to justify irreparable harm they claim they are suffering from their detention.

The judges will decide today if they will accept the proposal of the prosecutor who asked for the rejection of all four requests or if they will consider any of them to be valid.

At the same time, it is expected that the advocates in support of the category (Civil Action) who will represent the Fyssa familywhich is represented by five lawyers, including one of those who had represented them posters of the KKEand the Abuzid Ebarak who is represented by three advocates.

With the start of the appellate trial, president Sofia Panoutsakopoulou announced the names of 56 defendants for the activities of the Golden Dawn criminal organization, of which one has passed away, one has waived his right to appeal, while four are facing only misdemeanor offenses. The witnesses that the president spoke were 146.

It should be noted that for 12 of the defendants the final outcome of the trial may have an unpleasant outcome as the appellate court not only judges the appeals filed by themselves expecting acquittal or a reduction of their sentences, but also the appeal brought by the Appellate prosecutor asking for longer sentences. The prosecutor’s appeal, which will be decided by the judges of the Five-Member Court of Criminal Appeals, concerns the seven convicted former members of parliament as a management group as well as the five defendants for the attempted murder of the fisherman.

RES-EMP

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