Officer’s claims prompt laughter at Golden Dawn trial
The head of one of the police’s motorcycle-riding DIAS units that responded to the melee that resulted in the fatal stabbing of rapper Pavlos Fyssas in 2013 by a self-proclaimed supporter of far-right party Golden Dawn, admitted in court on Monday that the units were not acting according to a plan.
Officer Anastasios Tsolakidis failed to answer several questions directed at him by the bench and prompted laughter in the courtroom when he claimed that the arrest of self-confessed murderer Giorgos Roupakias, was “lightning fast.”
Officers have come under criticism for not responding sooner to reports that a large group of men had attacked a single individual on a busy street in a suburb of Piraeus and that they did not make enough arrests at the scene.
The trial is due to resume after the summer break in September.
