Kassimis: May 1 case has closed
The brother of a left-wing terrorist killed in a gunfight with police 26 years ago yesterday denied charges that he was involved in another, now-defunct, terror group. Michalis Kassimis, 58 – whose brother, Christos, is believed to have been a founding member of the Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA) group – visited examining judge Leonidas Zervobeakos yesterday and received a five-day deferment of his testimony. On Tuesday morning, he will appear before Zervobeakos – who headed the November 17 and ELA investigations – to answer charges of participation in the May 1 group and involvement in the June 1987 attempted killing in Athens of Georgios Raftopoulos, who at the time was the chairman of the General Confederation of Greek Labor. «I cannot understand why a case that was closed 16 years ago has been reopened,» Kassimis told journalists. He had been questioned by police just after the Raftopoulos attack, but was released without charges. May 1 appeared in 1987, and merged with ELA in 1990. ELA apparently disbanded in 1996.
