GREECE: NEARLY QUARTER OF A MILLION GREEKS LINE FUNERAL ROUTE OF RESISTANCE HERO ALEXANDROS PANAGOULIS.
Record ID:
584701
GREECE: NEARLY QUARTER OF A MILLION GREEKS LINE FUNERAL ROUTE OF RESISTANCE HERO ALEXANDROS PANAGOULIS.
- Title: GREECE: NEARLY QUARTER OF A MILLION GREEKS LINE FUNERAL ROUTE OF RESISTANCE HERO ALEXANDROS PANAGOULIS.
- Date: 6th May 1976
- Summary: 1. GV PAN Crowd chanting outside Cathedral 0.08 2. LV & CU INT Panagoulis lying in state in open coffin as crowds of mourners file past weeping (3 shots) 0.26 3. SV Official controls mourners as they file past 0.38 4. SCU Weeping women 0.48 5. SCU Former Premier Canellopoulos (centre) and Theodarakis (right) on steps outside Cathedral 0.51 6. GV PAN FROM Greek flag at half-mast TO vast crowd ling route to cemetery 1.00 7. TV Funeral cortege passing through chanting crowd (3 shots) 1.33 8. GV Chanting crowd 1.39 Initials BB/1735 TA/MR/BB/1800 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 21st May 1976 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: ATHENS, GREECE
- Country: Greece
- Reuters ID: LVA8UMRW146JJ9806X36VGNSV4Q5
- Story Text: Nearly quarter of a million Greeks followed the coffin on independent liberal politician Alexandros Panagoulis on Wednesday (5 May). Mr. Panagoulis died in a car crash last Saturday (1 May) on the same road where he tried to assassinate dictator George Papadopoulos in 1968. His family has claimed the accident was a political murder.
The streets along the tow miles (3 Kilometres) from Athens Cathedral to the cemetery were lined with people shouting anti-American and anti-government slogans. Mr. Panagoulis, aged 37, became a resistance hero for his attempt to assassinate Papadopoulos by placing a time bomb on the highway on which the junta leader commuted to Athens.
Mr. Panagoulis was sentenced to death in 1968 but the sentence was not carried out following international pressure. He spent six years in prison mainly in solitary confinement and was released in 1973 in a general amnesty granted by Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos is himself now serving life imprisonment for crimes committed during his junta's rule.
Meanwhile Greek judicial authorities are continuing their inquiries into Mr. Panagoulis' death. The day before the funeral they detained shopkeeper Mr. Michael Stefas who said his car was involved in the fatal crash. Mr. Stefas has said Mr. Panagoulis's car skidded on the wet pavement of a seaside highway near Athens, bumped into him, swerved off the road and crashed into a wall.
Before the funeral thousands of Greeks filed past Mr. Panagoulis' body as it lay in state in Athens Cathedral.
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