Terror trial suspect not recognized
None of the prosecution witnesses who testified yesterday at the trial of Avraam Lesperoglou were able to identify the suspected 1980s terrorist as one of the perpetrators of two bloody shootouts in Athens 16 years ago. Lesperoglou, 46, is accused of participation in the murder of prosecutor Giorgos Theofanopoulos, a supermarket robbery in which three security guards were killed, and a shootout with police in Gyzi in which two policemen and an urban guerrilla fell dead. All incidents took place in 1985. But on the second day of the trial yesterday, all eight prosecution witnesses said they did not recognize the alleged Anti-State Struggle leftist terrorist as one of the men who took part in the Galatsi and Gyzi incidents. The prosecutor then unsuccessfully requested that he call another five witnesses. After topping the counter-terrorism squad’s wanted list for 17 years, Lesperoglou was arrested trying to enter the country illegally in 1999. He is currently serving three and a half years for draft-dodging.
