Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party issued a caustic statement on Friday on the occasion of the four-year anniversary since the start of a trial implicating members of the far-right Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi) in the stabbing death of an anti-fascist rapper in September 2013.
Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party issued a caustic statement on Friday on the occasion of the four-year anniversary since the start of a trial implicating members of the far-right Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi) in the stabbing death of an anti-fascist rapper in September 2013.
Come September, six years will have passed since a mid-level cadre of the extremist but Parliament-represented political party, which critics charge is a neo-Nazi network, stabbed 34-year-old Pavlos Fyssas on a sidewalk in the working-class Piraeus district of Keratsini.
The man charged with intentional homicide, Giorgos Roupakias, offered a confession to police on the night of the killing. However, prosecutors, magistrates and judges subsequently added a bevy of Golden Dawn-affiliated suspects to the indictment instead of first trying the suspect in a speedy trial.
ND appeared particularly incensed over the appearance of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' common-law wife, Betty Baziana, at the courthouse on Friday. A photograph widely circulated on the social media and by the press showed her comforting Fyssas' mother. Media reports said Baziana was accompanied by a members of ruling SYRIZA party's youth wing.
"Hypocrisy has its limits...Tomorrow, April 20, marks four years since the commencement of the Golden Dawn trial, which ND spearheaded with evidence submitted to the justice system as far back as 2013," the center-right party said.
The statement also directly charged that hard left SYRIZA is "exclusively" responsible for delaying the closely-watched trial, both in Greece and abroad.
"Why has SYRIZA over these past (four) years cooperated with Golden Dawn in order to topple the Samaras government, in the squares with the 'indignados', in the farcical (July 2015) referendum, in joint trips to the islands, in an effort to impose the simple representational system...?" the ND statement rhetorically asked.
In a laconic reply, the ruling party referred to "impudence" on the part of ND.