Greece: Police Arrest University Professor Alexandros Giotopoulos As Leader Of November 17 Urban Guerrilla Group

Record ID: 4416

  • Title: Greece: Police Arrest University Professor Alexandros Giotopoulos As Leader Of November 17 Urban Guerrilla Group
  • Date: 19th July 2002
  • Summary: On July 19, 2002, Greek police arrested three members of the elusive November 17 urban guerrilla group, amongst them a university professor, Alexandros Giotopoulos, who they claim to be the groups leader. Three other suspects, including Giotopoulos French wife had been detained earlier in the week. Although Giotopoulos denied any connection with the terrorist organisation police claimed to have overwhelming evidence of his guilt, including documents in his handwriting alluding to murders committed by November 17, and his fingerprints taken from an Athens safe house where explosives and munitions were found. The other men arrested with him were named as Vassilios Tzortzatos and Theologos Psaradelis. Police claimed Tzortzatos had confessed to a number of offences including taking part in the assassination of Greek parliamentarian Pavlos Bakoyannis in September 1989, industrialists Dimitris Angelopoulos in April 1986 and Alexandros Athanasiadis-Bodosakis in 1988, while Psaradelis admitted involvement in one bank robberyThe police operation against the radical leftists, who had managed to elude capture for more than a quarter of a century, started on June 29, when a bomb exploded in the hands of a November 17 suspect in Pireaaus. The group also known as 17N or Red November was named after an incident in 1973 when the military sent tanks into Athens Polytechnic School to quell a student uprising killing a number of them in the process. The first killing attributed to the organisation was the murder of American Richard Welch, the CIA station chief in Athens on December 23, 1975. During the 1980s it was considered to be one of the most active terrorist groups operating in Western EuropeThe last crime linked to November 17 was the drive-by murder of British military attach Brigadier Stephen Saunders on June 8 2000, which brought Scotland Yard and the FBI into the hunt.
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords:
  • Access Restrictions:This media cannot be downloaded as there may be copyright restrictions. Please contact us for more information
  • Location: GREECE ATHENS
  • Reuters ID: LDL0012I0NYXZ
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text:
  • Copyright Holder: Reuters Archive
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
Register