NEWS

Police probed over court clashes

The Athens prosecutor’s office has ordered an investigation into an alleged attack on two members of leftist party Synaspismos’s youth movement by riot police at the capital’s main court complex on Tuesday. Nasos Iliopoulos, the youth wing’s secretary, and his colleague Leonidas Kapoutsis are due to be released from the Athens General Hospital today. Doctors said Iliopoulos had suffered bruising to the head and spine while Kapoutsis had bruises on his head, chest and stomach. Police said that scuffles broke out during a security operation ahead of the appearance of six suspected terrorists at the court complex. But Synaspismos said the six suspects had been in court earlier in the day and that the party supporters were at the complex for the hearings of 45 people arrested during disturbances on Monday, when a large demonstration was held in Athens to mark two years since 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos was shot dead by a police officer. «Initially there was no tension at all, but then the policemen started to push people,» Giorgos Baskozos, a member of Synaspismos’s youth movement, told Skai Radio. «When we protested that we had a right to be in this public place, they started to hit us with batons; they punched us and they hit us with their helmets. «When our secretary [Iliopoulos] fell to the ground, policemen started stamping on him and hitting him.» Iliopoulos said he had no recollection of the incident. Doctors said he suffered temporary memory loss. Synaspismos also alleged that riot police stood outside its youth movement’s offices in central Athens on Monday night and chanted slogans about teenagers being killed, comparing the leftist party to a terrorist organization and in favor of Adonis Georgiadis, an MP for the nationalist Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) who often clashes with leftists.

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