Police close in on Nov17 suspects

Injured bomber is tied to 1997 murder of shipowner, officers cull evidence, three members sought

An elderly Athenian passes a policeman guarding the area in Kato Patissia where November 17’s hideout was discovered on Wednesday. Residents of the apartment block at 84 Patmou Street have been moved to a hotel as police experts examine and document weapons and explosives in the ground floor apartment.

The pursuit of the November 17 terrorist group's members intensified yesterday as police tied an injured suspect to the murder of shipowner Costis Peratikos in Piraeus in 1997. They also reckoned that Savvas Xeros, who was recovering from injuries suffered when a bomb detonated in his hands in the port of Piraeus last Saturday, was a key member of the gang that has killed 23 people over the last 27 years without any of its members being arrested or identified.

Xeros, a 40-year-old painter of icons, was the man who had rented the apartment in which November 17's arms and documents were discovered on Wednesday by police acting on a tip-off from neighbors who identified Xeros from a photograph on television.

Officers said they believed that being the keeper of the cache and being one of the group's prominent members, Xeros was in a position to name other senior operatives. Xeros was taken off life support yesterday and was emerging from sedation. He was visited by the deputy ministers of public order and health yesterday.

Police were questioning Xeros's former wife, Angeliki Sotiropoulou, for many hours yesterday. She was described as being uncooperative and aggressive. The two divorced in 1990 after seven years of marriage. A source said she may have been an accomplice of the gang. Meanwhile, officers said they were looking for another three men of similar age to Xeros who had been identified and who used the same hideout at 84 Patmou Street in densely populated Kato Patissia.

The owners of the apartment in which November 17's arsenal was found said that Xeros had rented it «about eight or 10 years ago,» using the false name Grigoris Pouftsis. But police chief Fotis Nassiakos also tied Xeros directly to the murder by November 17 of shipowner Costas Peratikos in Piraeus in May 1997.

«Fingerprints that were found in the motor vehicle used by the November 17 terrorists in the murder of Costis Peratikos have been identified as those of Savvas Xeros,» he told a news conference yesterday.

Nassiakos said that police, accompanied by a prosecutor, had found, among other things: «November 17 proclamations, the organization's banner, its stamp, a computer, weapons (such as a. 38 handgun, two automatics, an Uzi submachine gun and others), explosives, fuses, two bazookas, rockets, wigs and other material for disguises, tools, and hand grenades.» He stressed that the catalog was indicative of what was found because the investigation in the small studio apartment was continuing.

«It is obvious that all this material will be subjected to intense scrutiny and I believe that valuable evidence will be drawn for the investigation,» he said.

One of the apartment's rooms contained crates with documents and the other with weapons. It also had a bed and the kitchen was functional, officers said. They said that British and US experts who had wanted to enter the apartment had not been allowed to yesterday. British and US officials have been working with the Greeks to track down the terrorists, heightening their cooperation after November 17's last murder, that of British defense attache Stephen Saunders in Athens in June 2000. Forensics experts had gathered large amounts of material for DNA testing and many fingerprints.