Witnesses identify N17 killers
Three of the prosecution witnesses who testified in the 17th day of the November 17 trial yesterday say they were able to pick out the men they saw at the scenes of two of the terrorist group’s deadly attacks among the 19 defendants. A friend of Alexandros Athanassiadis-Bodossakis who was present when the industrialist was shot in his car on March 1, 1988 in Filothei, said he was certain beyond doubt that suspected N17 chief hit man Dimitris Koufodinas pulled the trigger. «I have no hesitation in saying that the face I saw at the scene of the murder was that of Dimitris Koufodinas,» Dimitris Paparounis told the court, which is meeting in a heavily guarded building inside the Athens Korydallos Prison complex. «I have accepted the political responsibility for all the acts for which November 17 has claimed responsibility,» Koufodinas, a 45-year-old beekeeper, responded. «The court will judge on the criminal responsibility. It is all too obvious that I am to spend the rest of my life in prison. But the system of values by which I function does not permit me to say who took part in each act.» Another two witnesses identified Christodoulos Xeros, a 45-year-old maker of musical instruments, as having been riding pillion on a motorbike seen speeding away from the scene of the June 28, 1988 bomb attack that killed US naval attache William Nordeen outside his home in Kefalari, northern Athens. The one, Dimitrios Kesarios, told prosecutor Christos Lambrou he had received threatening phone calls at home before appearing in court. Neither of the two prosecution witnesses for the January 10, 1989 fatal shooting of prosecutor Constantinos Androulidakis was able to identify his killers. But defendant Constantinos Telios, a 38-year-old Thessaloniki schoolteacher, told the court he had taken part in the attack along with Koufodinas and Vassilis Tzortzatos, 45, an electrician.
