‘Horror star and death machine’
The November 17 terrorism trial entered a new phase yesterday with the first of some 60 lawyers representing group victims or surviving N17 targets taking the stand. Ilias Anagnostopoulos, who is acting on behalf of N17’s American and British targets, depicted the extreme left-wing group as a bunch of murderers – he called alleged chief hit man Savvas Xeros a «death machine» – who lived the good life on the proceeds of a series of bank heists. «They existed, lived and breathed murder,» he said. «Murder was their daily business, their job.» Anagnostopoulos said Xeros’s elder brother, Christodoulos, a heavily built maker of musical instruments who has also been charged with several killings, «could have been a leading actor in horror films.» The lawyer said the group’s bank heists indicated that «N17’s members, and especially the powerful duo of (Alexandros) Yotopoulos and (Dimitris) Koufodinas, became enamored of money and spent it, with their companions, on houses and holidays… reaping all the benefits of the system they were supposedly fighting.»
