Bank robber gets 25 years
An Athens court yesterday found 29-year-old student Yiannis Dimitrakis guilty of taking part in a bloody bank robbery in January 2006 and sentenced to him to 25 years in prison but cleared him of involvement in six other raids. Dimitrakis was found guilty on two counts of attempted manslaughter, being a member of a criminal organization and illegally possessing and using firearms. The ruling was met with derision by anarchists who had gathered at the court amid tight security. Two guards were injured in a shootout after the 29-year-old raided a branch of the National Bank in central Athens with three other suspects, thought to be members of the gang known as the «Robbers in Black.» However, judges decided there was not enough evidence to prove that Dimitrakis had taken part in the other six robberies the gang allegedly has carried out. They appeared convinced by the defense’s assertion that the 43,000 euros found in Dimitrakis’s post-office box was money from an anarchists’ «solidarity fund,» not cash from bank robberies.
