The leaders of Golden Dawn, once Greece’s third-largest party, can expect long prison sentences
IT TOOK SEVEN years, but justice was finally delivered. On October 7th Nikos Michaloliakos, the founder of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, and his six closest henchmen were found guilty of operating a “criminal organisation” by a court in Athens. Another 11 former MPs and dozens of hangers-on were at the same time found guilty of being members of their gang. A crowd of several thousand gathered outside the court cheered when the verdict was announced.
While Mr Michaloliakos was making stridently nationalist speeches in parliament, Golden Dawn thugs trained by former Greek paratroopers carried out violent attacks against migrant workers and supporters of the still-active Greek communist party. Their favourite hunting grounds were Keratsini and Perama, both impoverished workers’ suburbs in western Athens.
