New phase in Nov17 cleanup
The investigation into the November 17 terrorist organization enters a new phase this week, as investigating judge Leonidas Zervobeakos is expected to hand over today or tomorrow some 6,000 pages of documents and other material to the prosecutor who is considering the evidence in relation to the charges against the 19 suspects. Appeals court prosecutor Kyriakos Karoutsos is expected to make his proposals, by early January, to a Council of Appeals Court Judges, which will then finalize the charges on which the accused will stand trial. The trial is expected to begin by early March. With 19 defendants and an estimated 400 witnesses, this is expected to be the largest trial in Greece’s post-dictatorship history. It is being seen as a test of how the judicial system will cope. Already, defense lawyers are raising objections. Among them are the arguments that jurors must be involved in the judging of serious crimes such as murder (not by the three-judge court, as the recent organized crime law mandates), that the law cannot be applied retroactively, and that «political crimes» (as some defendants claim) must be tried by jury.
