GREECE: Escaped Greek militant appears on video calling for revenge over economic crisis

Record ID: 644040

  • Title: GREECE: Escaped Greek militant appears on video calling for revenge over economic crisis
  • Date: 20th January 2014
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (FILE - AUGUST 2002) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF KORYDALLOS PRISON WINDOWS OF PRISON PRISON GUARD AT TOWER
  • Embargoed: 4th February 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: Crime,Economy,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA1P7QN1MH0FEZ9YZEAWVIN6X28
  • Story Text: Christodoulos Xiros, who was a member of a deadly militant guerrilla group, appears on the internet in a video calling for action over the economic crisis.

    A convicted member of a dismantled Greek guerrilla group that has escaped from prison appeared in a video on the internet on Monday (January 20) calling for a revolution against the state over the economic crisis crippling the public.
    Christodoulos Xiros, 56, a member of the militant group November 17, responsible for 23 killings before it was dismantled in 2002, was serving multiple life sentences in Athens Korydallos high security prison. He was given leave for the Christmas holidays and never returned. Greek police have waged an intense manhunt to find him. The government faced criticism over why Xiros was allowed leave at all.
    A video uploaded on the leftist Indymedia Athens website on Monday showed Xiros speaking to the camera with pictures of the revolutionary Che Guevara, two Greek independence fighters, and a Communist World War Two resistance leader hanging behind him.
    "Society is collapsing, thousands of suicides, hundreds of thousands in food lines, one and half million unemployed," said Xiros. He called on leftists and anarchists to unite against politicians, journalists and police.
    "It is time for battle, the enemy is in front of us and we must all face him. Begin now, door to door, neighbourhood to neighbourhood, there is not time to lose. We won't be sitting in our offices, we must be out on the streets. It is our job to light the fuse. Comrades of armed struggle, both free and imprisoned, we must all understand that this is our time," he added.
    In a separate written statement uploaded on Indymedia, Xiros said that convincing prison authorities to give him leave was "a personal success" and warned he would "wield my rifle again".
    Members of the November 17 group were captured in 2002 and convicted for 23 killings - including Greek, U.S. and British businessmen, politicians and diplomats - and dozens of bomb attacks spanning three decades.
    Greece has a history of leftist violence. In recent years, a number of previously unknown far-left and anarchist groups have claimed a series of small-scale bomb attacks against police, politicians and businessmen in retaliation for austerity measures.
    After his escape the United States State Department expressed its concern to Greece and called on the government to locate Xiros.
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