NEWS

Group claims tax office bomb

A little-known guerrilla group named December 6, in honor of a 15-year-old boy shot dead by police in December 2008, has claimed responsibility for an attempted bomb attack at a tax office in the Athens neighborhood of Neos Cosmos last month.

In a 12-page proclamation published in the far-left weekly Pontiki, the group said the bomb – defused by police following an anonymous warning – had been planted at a tax office to protest austerity measures imposed by the debt-ridden government in exchange for 110 billion euros in loans from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

?Tax offices are key pylons of a system promoting the predatory policies of capital,? the document said, adding that ?the IMF dictatorship imposed on Greece… demands that we muster our forces.?

But several references in the document suggest the group is reserved about the use of violence and is trying to differentiate itself from Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire, which claimed a letter bomb campaign last November. One extract says, ?With the current social dynamics, it would be dangerous to make armed struggle our first political priority.? The author of the document adds that the group’s members «do not aspire to have hideouts full of weapons» and «seek comrades who are not attracted by the idea of the lifestyle of the outlaw.”

In another extract, the group condemns a pipe bomb blast on March 28 last year which killed a 15-year-old Afghan. ?The death of an innocent person cannot be regarded as collateral damage in any war.?

Formed after the death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos on December 6, 2008, the group mailed envelopes containing bullets to journalist Yiannis Pretenteris and to Alexis Kougias, the lawyer of the police officer convicted of the teenager?s murder. The group has also claimed a large bomb blast at a ministry building in January 2010.

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