N17 ‘did not have a leader’
One of the convicted members of the November 17 terrorist organization yesterday told a court hearing the group’s appeals that nobody could claim to be N17’s leader because the group was split into many small cells. Vassilis Tzortzatos received four life sentences for his part in the terrorist organization. Alexandros Yotopoulos got 21 life sentences as the group’s mastermind but Tzortzatos said yesterday that no single person led N17. «There was no leader or operational leader. No member of the organization… could know all the other members,» Tzortzatos said. «One of the first things I learned was that there were cells and a leader was chosen for each action.» Tzortzatos spoke after Dimitris Koufodinas, the group’s chief hit man, told the court through his lawyer that he accepted «political responsibility» for N17’s actions but that he would not give any more details about the group.
