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Last Act in a Violent Drama? The Trial of Greece's Revolutionary Organization 17 November

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/095465590953479

1556-1836

George Kassimeris,

Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

ABSTRACT By strange coincidence, Greece's Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17 N) met its end almost exactly a year after Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorists felled New York's twin towers, when the group's leader of operations, Dimitris Koufodinas, turned himself in to the police after months on the run, on September 5, 2002. The capture of Koufodinas and his group marked the demise of the last and most stubborn of a generation of ideological terrorists whose campaigns caused serious political and security problems in Western Europe for more than a quarter of a century. Drawing on the judicial investigation findings and the courtroom testimonies of the terrorists, this article attempts to tell the stories of the four most senior group members in order to understand what led them to act in the way they did and, more crucially, what kept them inside a terrorist organization with no prospects and community support for so long. Notes 1. Xiros's information led also to the discovery of the group's main arsenal in three flats in central Athens. The flats—one of them rented by Xiros himself—contained a number of the sixty anti-tank rockets stolen by 17 N from an army base in northern Greece in 1989, the typewriter used to produce the group's early communiqués, 17 N's red flag with the trademark five-pointed star, as well as grenades, wigs, communiqués, and posters of Che Guevara, Karl Marx, and Aris Velouhiotis, a Greek Second World War resistance fighter. One of the weapons found, a G-3 rifle, was used to kill the group's last victim, the British defence attaché in Athens, Stephen Saunders, who was shot dead in June 2000 as he drove to work. 2. See “17 N: I Diki den Edose apandisseis” [17 N: The Trial Failed to Provide Answers] in Kathimerini tis Kyriakis, 30 December 2003. 3. See for example, Alison Jamieson, “Identity and Morality in the Italian Red Brigades,” in Terrorism and Political Violence 2, no. 4 (1990): 508-20; Alberto Franceschini, Mara Renato e Io, Storia dei fondatori delle BR (Milano: Armando Mondatori Editore, 1988). 4. As veteran U.S. State Department Intelligence Threat Analyst, Dennis Pluchinsky, put it to me, “I have never seen a terrorist group unravel so quickly.” 5. Yonah Alexander and Dennis Pluchinsky, eds., Europe's Red Terrorists: The Fighting Communist Organizations (London: Frank Cass, 1992), 48. 6. On the case of the defence, see Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia, special supplement entitled I Ora tis Krissis: I Megali Diki tis 17 N [Judgement Time: The Big Trial of 17 N]. 7. Andreas Staikos interview with Athens News, 2 August 2002. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid. 10. Author's interview with anti-terrorism officer, Athens, 10 September 2002. 11. Korydallos prison court chambers, 6 March 2003. 12. Ibid. 13. Pre-trial Giotopoulos interview to central Greece provincial newspaper Lamiakos Typos, 5 October 2002. 14. Ibid. 15. The Welch communiqué, dated December 1975, charged that “US imperialism [was] the Number One enemy of the people” and held the Americans responsible for “decades of innumerable humiliations, calamities and crimes” inflicted upon the Greek people. 16. Giotopoulos interview with Lamiakos Typos. 17. See further down court profile and testimony of Patroklos Tselentis. 18. Ibid. 19. Korydallos prison court chambers, 16 March 2003. 20. Author's interview with anti-terrorism officer, Athens, 10 September 2002. 21. On how the Greek media reacted to the Koufodinas unexpected surrender see, for instance, Kathimerini and Ta Nea, 6 September 2002 and Kyrikatiki Eleftherotypia and To Vima tis Kyriakis, 8 September 2002. See also “Deka apantisseis gia to grifo Koufodina” [Ten Answers for the Koufodinas Puzzle] in Eleftherotypia, 12 September 2002 and “Greece's most wanted surrenders” in The Guardian, 6 September 2002. 22. Nikos Giannopoulos in his court testimony, Korydallos prison chambers, 25 July 2003. 23. Metro magazine journalist, Nikos Vafeiadis, in his court testimony, Korydallos prison chambers, 26 July 2003. 24. Cited in Eleftherotypia, 9 September 2002. 25. Judd was attacked by two men on a motorcycle at a traffic stop as he was driving a shipment of diplomatic mail to the U.S. Air Force base at Athens Hellenicon airport. The attackers pulled alongside Judd's car and it was Koufodinas, according to the charge sheet, who fired with 17 N's .45-calibre signature weapon five rounds against him. Judd instinctively accelerated, jumped the median strip, and sped away. 26. See ‘O antrhropos pou pire tin efthini’ [The Man Who Took Responsibility], in Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia, 30 November 2003 and ‘Esosse tin…timi tous' [He Saved…Their Honour] in Ta Nea, 8 December 2003. 27. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison court chambers, 23 July 2003. 28. One Greek political commentator who was also covering the opening of the 17 N trial said to me that “he had the look of a man who knew something damaging about every one of his co-defendants.” 29. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 24 July 2003. 30. Letter to Eleftherotypia newspaper, 10 September 2002. 31. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 24 July 2003. 32. Ibid. 33. On 17 N's tactics, targets and operational evolution between 1975 and 1980 see George Kassimeris, Europe's Last Red Terrorists: The Revolutionary Organization 17 November(New York: New York University Press, 2001), 72–75. 34. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 24 July 2003. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid 38. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Ibid. 44. Ibid. 45. “We have but one answer to all these reports,” said the eight-page communiqué to Eleftherotypia newspaper, “Come and get us, if you can.” See Eleftherotypia, 16 March 1999 and Athens News, 17 March 1999. 46. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 24 July 2003. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50. Ibid. 51. Ibid. 52. Ibid. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid. 56. Ibid. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid. 59. Ibid. 60. Ibid. 61. In the 17 N's Manifesto 1992, the communiqué writer acknowledges that it would have never been able to survive and avoid capture, had the group not drawn lessons from the Red Brigades experience. See Manifesto 1992, dated 17 November 1992. 62. David Moss, “Analyzing Italian Political Violence as a Sequence of Communicative Acts: The Red Brigades, 1970–1982,” in Social Analysis, no. 3 (1983): 85. 63. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 24 July 2003. 64. Ibid. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid. 71. Ibid. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid. 76. Ibid. 77. Ibid. 78. Ibid. 79. In his hospital testimony, Xiros stated that “this present day, I consider myself not a member of 17 N but a victim of that organization. I therefore ask to be tried with leniency and that's why I went beyond what I was asked giving a very detailed testimony. I regard my testimony, a public confession before God and his people. I ask forgiveness from all those I hurt and particularly the relatives of the victims without thinking for a minute that an apology is sufficient.” 80. Ibid. On solely legal grounds, Xiros's defence raised questions about the circumstances of his weeks of detention and interrogation in room 1031 of Evagellismos hospital without a lawyer before being charged. Xiros's lawyer, Giorgos Agiostratitis, maintained that “our constitution provides that from the arrest of anyone charged with crime, they must be brought before a judge within 24 hours. If the person charged is incapacitated, the judge goes to the hospital. Only in this case, he went 70 days later. Either the person charged is medically able to present himself to the judge or the investigating judge can go to the hospital and conduct the questioning in the presence of a lawyer. Otherwise, if the person charged is sick and unable to move and a judge does not come to see him, the questioning that took place should have not taken place.” Author's interview with Giorgos Agiostratitis, Athens, 14 October 2002. 81. Author's interview with Marinos Pittaridis, Athens, 19 May 2003. 82. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 4 March 2003. 83. Ibid. 84. For Xiros's full statement and his contradictory, if not tormented, nine months in Korydallos courtroom see Eleftherotypia, 17 Dec. 2003. 85. Like in Italy, Greek anti-terrorism legislation encouraged voluntary collaboration and cooperation with the authorities and the renunciation of terrorist aims and methods. In Italy the penitence law was introduced in May 1982. In order to benefit from it, the pentito had to make a full confession of all crimes committed, and second she/he had to make an active contribution towards the prevention of further acts of terrorism. It was then up to the judicial authorities to decide based on the relevance of the evidence provided, how much could a prison sentence be reduced. Patrizio Peci was the Red Brigade's biggest pentito and in his book Io L'Iinfame (I, the Vile One) he listed all the reasons for his decision. 86. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 30 July 2003. 87. “Court president, judges, prosecutors, I must first of all ask forgiveness of society, of those who cooperated and trusted me, of those who loved me” were Tselentis's first words in his court testimony. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 30 July 2003. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid. 92. Ibid. 93. Ibid. 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid. 96. Ibid. 97. Ibid. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid. 100. Ibid. 101. Ibid. 102. Ibid. 103. Ibid. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid. 106. Ibid. 107. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 1 April 2003. 108. Peter Paret, “Clausewitz” in Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 200. 109. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 13 March 2003. 110. Ibid. 111. Ibid. 112. See interview with Negri in the Independent, 17 August 2004. 113. On Greece's poor anti-terrorism efforts see Kassimeris, Europe's Last Red Terrorists, 152–198. 114. Court proceedings, Korydallos prison chambers, 24 July 2003. Additional informationNotes on contributorsGeorge Kassimeris George Kassimeris is a Senior Research Fellow in Conflict and Terrorism at the University of Wolverhampton, England.