ELA four are sent to Korydallos
A broken sewage pipe in the special cells where a third of the suspected November 17 terrorists were held forced Korydallos Prison authorities to reschedule detention arrangements for the four Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA) suspects, all of whom were sent to prison pending trial after testifying before an investigating judge yesterday. Suspected ELA top decision-maker Christos Tsigaridas yesterday reiterated his previous admission of membership in the left-wing group (from 1975 to 1990) in his testimony before Leonidas Zervobeakos, who handled the N17 investigation. Quizzed on ELA’s rumored links with N17, the 64-year-old Athens architect claimed that there were none, as the two groups «were divided by an abyss of ideological, political and organizational differences.» The other three suspects, Kimolos Mayor Angeletos Kanas, 52, allegedly ELA’s master bomb-maker, civil engineer Costas Agapiou, 56, who is believed to have taken over from Tsigaridas after 1990, when the group took a much more violent turn, and tourist agency employee Irini Athanassaki, 48, accused of writing the group’s proclamations, deny any ELA link. Kanas and Athanassaki yesterday attributed their arrests to a mudslinging campaign by the Kimolos electrician’s estranged first wife, whose testimony is believed to have greatly helped the investigation. But Police Chief Fotis Nassiakos said the four represented ELA’s leadership. «I cannot rule out further arrests, but these will be on the outskirts of the group. The leadership is finished.» All four were taken to Korydallos Prison, where they were temporarily detained in the psychiatric ward and are expected today to be moved to the wing for prisoners awaiting trial. Initial plans to place them in the special section of the men’s wing, where seven of the 18 detained N17 suspects are being held pending trial, on March 3 were derailed yesterday when a sewer broke, flooding the newly-built isolation cells. Six of the N17 seven were moved to the new cells in the women’s wing, where their fellow-defendants are incarcerated, while icon-painter and alleged hitman Savvas Xeros was moved to the prison hospital.
