Trial Postponed for Greek Neo-Fascist Golden Dawn Party Members

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/world/europe/golden-dawn-trial-greece.html

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KORYDALLOS, Greece — In the highest-profile political trial in Greece in decades, members of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party appeared in court on Monday for a brief hearing as their trial was scheduled to open on charges including membership in a criminal organization and murder.

The trial will determine the fate of Golden Dawn, the third-largest party in Parliament. The overtly racist group was catapulted from obscurity into the front lines of Greek politics at the peak of the debt crisis in 2012, railing against austerity and a growing influx of immigrants.

Facing trial are the party’s leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, 57, a former Greek Army commando, and 68 others, including the party’s remaining 16 lawmakers as well as supporters and police officers. Most are charged with membership in a criminal organization, with others accused of murder, racist violence and weapons possession. They face long prison terms if convicted. Golden Dawn rejects the charges, saying they are politically motivated.

The party’s leadership and most of its lawmakers did not appear in court on Monday, choosing to be represented by their lawyers in what appeared to be an attempt to play down the significance of the trial.

The trial was quickly postponed until May 7, after the judges ruled that the proceedings could not continue because one defendant did not have a lawyer.

The culmination of a 15-month investigation by prosecutors who say that Golden Dawn operated as a criminal organization under a military-style leadership, the trial is expected to last more than a year. It opened in a makeshift courtroom in Greece’s largest high-security prison in the district of Korydallos, west of Athens, where many of the defendants are being detained.

The site was chosen for security reasons, but it may be changed because the choice has angered the local authorities and residents, who fear protracted upheaval as supporters and opponents of Golden Dawn plan protests outside the prison. The judges will hear an appeal by the local authorities to move the trial when it resumes in May, a decision that was met with loud protests in the courtroom.

Local schools remained closed on Monday, and the police set up barriers to keep apart rival demonstrators who gathered around the prison as a police helicopter circled overhead.

A secretive and shady group for decades, Golden Dawn ventured out from the fringes of domestic politics in 2012, after Greece signed its second bailout with international creditors. Tapping into public anger over austerity measures demanded by the country’s creditors and a growing population of immigrants perceived as depriving Greeks of jobs, it entered Parliament in 2012, securing 18 seats in the 300-member House.

Although its members were regularly accused of attacks on immigrants, the party avoided censure until September 2013, when a leftist rapper, Pavlos Fyssas, was killed. A supporter of Golden Dawn, Giorgos Roupakias, has admitted killing Mr. Fyssas and was in court on Monday.

A police crackdown after Mr. Fyssas’ death led to the arrest of the party’s leadership and searches of members’ homes that turned up weapons and Nazi paraphernalia. The party was later implicated in the murder of a Pakistani immigrant and a barrage of assaults on leftists.

But Golden Dawn has weathered the bad publicity amid enduring economic hardship and fears over immigration. It won 17 seats in elections in January even as the party’s leadership awaited trial in prison. It remains Greece’s third most popular party, after the leftist Syriza, which leads the governing coalition, and the main conservative opposition, New Democracy.

Three friends of Mr. Fyssas were assaulted Monday on their way to court by men believed to be supporters of Golden Dawn, prosecution lawyers told reporters on the sidelines of the trial. Two of the men were hospitalized with what were believed to be minor injuries.