Thessaloniki court convicts three youths over high school riot
Three youths aged between 18 and 21 years old were convicted to a suspended sentence of 12 months in prison with three years’ probation in connection with a riot outside a technical high school (EPAL) in Thessaloniki, northern Greece, earlier this month.
“You are on the wrong path and will end up in prison if you’re not careful. The sentence may prevent you from committing similar acts in the future,” the prosecutor at the Thessaloniki Court of Misdemeanors told the defendants at the trial on Monday, the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA) reported.
The three youths, two of whom are students at the technical high school in the suburb of Evosmos, were among a group of around 100 troublemakers affiliated to the extreme right that started a riot and clashed with police after blockading the building with dumpsters.
They were also part of a march that followed to another technical high school, in Stavroupoli, that had been the site of violent clashes between far-right and left-wing student groups a few days earlier.
The three defendants denied taking part in the riot and claimed to have accidentally found themselves part of the march to Stavroupoli.
Asked, however, why the Evosmos school was blockaded, one of the defendants reportedly said that it was a “show of solidarity to the students at the Stavroupoli EPAL over the entry of the anarchists.”
Another five suspects were arrested at the Evosmos riot and are to be tried in a juvenile court.