Map of cameras fuels terror fears
Counterterrorism police officers have stepped up their investigation into the suspected terrorist activities of a 35-year-old man who was killed in a shootout with police in southeastern Athens on Wednesday, following the discovery at the man’s home of a map of the capital’s surveillance cameras. According to police, the sketch pinpoints all the capital’s street cameras and includes notes regarding the scope and blind spots of each camera’s lens. The sketch is said to have strengthened police suspicions that Lambros Fountas was a key member of a major terrorist group, probably Revolutionary Struggle, which has claimed responsibility for a string of terrorist hits in recent years, including a rocket-propelled grenade attack on the US Embassy, the murder of a witness protection officer and the detonation of a car bomb outside the Athens Exchange. Police are now stepping up their efforts to locate a possible hideout and have intensified surveillance of the dead man’s relatives and close friends. Officers are also examining a set of keys found at Fountas’s home in Ambelokipi, near central Athens. Meanwhile, the result of DNA tests on drops of blood found at the location of last Wednesday’s shootout in Dafni, southeastern Athens, are expected today. Police are hoping that the test results might shed some light on the identity of a second suspect, who had been with Fountas when police spotted them trying to break into a car. Police believe that Fountas and his accomplices had planned to use the car in a terrorist attack that was aborted after the shootout. Forensic experts are also comparing Fountas’s fingerprints and DNA with forensic evidence gathered from the sites of various terrorist attacks and bank robberies.
