Nov17 now ‘disarmed’
The unraveling of November 17, the terrorist organization that had operated with impunity since 1975, picked up momentum over the weekend. Police discovered a second arms cache, this time in an apartment in Athens’s Pangrati district, allowing Public Order Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis to express the belief that November 17 has been disarmed. Police made no mention of arrests, although five people were taken in for questioning early on Saturday and another three or four were sought. Also, Athens was filled with reports yesterday that police knew the identity of the leader of the mysterious group that has killed 23 people. His «identity» can be summed up as his being a professor at Paris’s Vincennes University at some time, going by the nom de guerre Nikitas during the Greek military dictatorship of 1967 to 1974 and being involved with the Communist International. He was described as tough and wary of being in the public eye. After the dictatorship’s fall, he was known in Greece’s anarchist circles simply as «O Psilos» (the Tall Guy). But no one ever tied him to a name. There is a possibility he might not have lived in Greece for any great length of time and the French authorities have been asked to help. Although the focus of reports was on November 17’s historical leadership, a senior police officer told Kathimerini on Saturday, «It is early for them.» Police had their eyes on several other suspects whom they had questioned and were waiting to find enough evidence to arrest them. Public prosector Ioannis Driotis, who is responsible for the anti-terrorism investigation, met with Savvas Xeros for six hours in the early hours of Saturday morning. Xeros was in the Evangelismos Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, recovering from injuries sustained when a bomb he was allegedly carrying exploded in his hands on Saturday, June 29, in Piraeus harbor. Source said that Xeros had mentioned the names of several colleagues. The prosecutor’s office announced that Xeros had not testified formally. The injured suspect, whose fingerprints were found in a car used by November 17 to escape the scene of the murder of shipowner Costis Peratikos in Piraeus in 1997, has still not been arrested. His lawyer, Giorgos Agiostratis, protested on Saturday that he considered Xeros to be under arrest from the moment no family members or his lawyer were allowed near him. Police spokesman Lefteris Economou said that in the first floor hideout at 73 Damareos Street, Pangrati, «First indications were that the apartment contains various materials and especially a large number of anti-tank rockets, hand grenades, table clocks, materials for disguises and other things.» An electrician whom Xeros knew, Giorgos Panousopoulos, was questioned for 20 hours and released yesterday.
