Doctor: Xeros wanted to talk
November 17 suspect Savvas Xeros was not given any medication to induce him to confess to counterterrorism officials during his hospitalization last summer following the fateful explosion that led to the group’s dismantling, a doctor who treated the Athens icon painter testified yesterday. But Evangelismos hospital doctor Marinos Pittarakis told the court that he had disagreed with the conditions under which Xeros gave his first testimony. This provided police with enough leads to arrest a string of N17 suspects. Xeros was hospitalized under intense security on June 29, after a bomb accidentally exploded in his hands in Piraeus, severely wounding him. Pittarakis said prosecutor Ioannis Diotis and counterterrorism squad chief Stelios Syros started talking to Xeros in his hospital room on July 5. «I told [Xeros] that if they were keeping him from sleeping, I could stop them, on medical grounds. But he answered: ‘Doctor, I want to talk to them, to put an end to this story’.» Xeros now claims he was given mind-altering drugs to make him confess.
