Yotopoulos seen at N17 flat
A prosecution witness at the November 17 trial yesterday named the terrorist group’s alleged mastermind as one of the men she had seen entering a central Athens block of flats where N17 had stored most of its weaponry. Rosa Kofina, administrator of the building at 84 Patmou Street in Ano Patissia, was the third prosecution witness to positively identify Alexandros Yotopoulos in relation to November 17. The 59-year-old, Paris-born translator has only been linked with one attack, but not as an assassin. A police raid on a small ground-floor flat on the Patmou Street building on July 3 revealed a safe house containing the group’s flag, a typewriter and computer used to write proclamations as well as an assortment of arms including anti-tank rockets, automatic weapons and handguns. Yesterday, Kofina described Yotopoulos as «a well-dressed, good-looking gentleman with light-colored eyes and white hair at the temples.» She said their encounter took place six or seven years ago, and Yotopoulos was accompanied by two younger people. Yotopoulos denied having set foot in the building, while alleged N17 hit man Savvas Xeros, who had rented the flat, said N17 members made a point of always visiting the apartment on their own. Meanwhile, another witness identified suspected N17 member Dionysis Georgiadis – at 27, the youngest of the 19 defendants – as the man who had rented the second N17 safe house at 73 Damareos Street in Pangrati. Petros Vrahatis said Georgiadis had agreed on the lease «without even going to the trouble of seeing the flat.» Another witness, Dimitra Kapsalaki, identified alleged N17 chief hit man Dimitris Koufodinas as having accompanied the man who shot and wounded her husband, surgeon Zacharias Kapsalakis, in 1987.
