The government has issued a condemnation of the murder of a 27-year-old Pakistani man in central Athens last week.

In a statement, Alternate Interior Minister Charalambos Athanasiou said that violent attacks and racism should be met with “zero tolerance”.

“The reprehensible murder of the 27-year-old Pakistani migrant in Athens is condemned unreservedly, along with racist violence, regardless of who is behind it.”

The two men, a 29-year-old fireman and 25-year-old private sector employee, accused of murdering the Pakistani laborer in Petralona on Thursday appeared before a magistrate on Friday.

They told the judge that they argued with the victim after he allegedly got in their way with his bicycle. According to a witness, one of the suspects attacked the man with a knife from behind after a row.

Fifty Golden Dawn pre-election pamphlets were found at the 25-year-old’s home along with bats and knives. The neo-Nazi party has been linked to numerous attacks on migrants, including the murder of an Iraqi man in Athens last summer.

The victim was named by local media as Sahjat Luqman, who had been living in Greece for the past six years and had a job loading oranges onto trucks.

Members of Athens’s Pakistani community mourned the death of their countrymen at a public event on Saturday, which coincided with an anti-racism rally in the city center.