N17 ‘took pleasure in murder’
The November 17 suspects must be sent to prison, «for they are too dangerous to be left free,» the elderly father of the terrorist group’s second-last victim told the Korydallos prison court trying the 19 defendants yesterday. Businessman Michalis Peratikos, 86, said the men who murdered his son, Costis, in Piraeus in May 1997, were «a company of cowardly professional killers who murdered for a living.» «I have the feeling they took pleasure in murder, and also in issuing proclamations,» he said, adding that «a man who is beyond cure should be placed in custody, for society must move on.» Peratikos, who for two years owned the Elefsis Shipyards in which his son held a prominent post, said that after the murder he met with «words of sympathy and a stone wall» from the authorities. «I think there was no political will (to catch N17),» he said. «There were centers that protected and informed (the defendants) and others who are not in court.» Today, the court will examine witnesses of the June 2002 assassination of the British military attache in Athens, Stephen Saunders.
