Witness lauds N17 suspect
Costas Zouraris, a witness appearing in defense of Alexandros Yotopoulos, said the alleged November 17 mastermind had always been in favor of collective action rather than individual violence and could not have been involved in taking lives. Yotopoulos is one of 19 suspected members of the N17 terrorist group on trial in Korydallos Prison. Zouraris, a self-proclaimed professor who has run for election both with the conservative New Democracy and Communist parties, said Yotopoulos was «patriotic, with a belief in the freedom of the individual,» while his being «the son of such a great father had refined his behavior.» He was referring to Dimitris Yotopoulos, a leading Trotskyite in the 1930s. Zouraris compared the robberies committed by N17 to those by War of Independence heroes, saying they «belong within the great tradition of revolutionary processes.» Prof. Dimitris Skarpalezos, who had not seen Yotopoulos since 1971, said evidence against him could have been fabricated as the authorities’ «technical abilities are much greater than their mental abilities.»
