Golden Dawn members will take the stand, six years after rapper Pavlos Fyssas was murdered by Giorgos Roupakias, a self-proclaimed member of the group. Defence lawyers say that the party’s former lawmakers will likely start taking the stand to respond to accusations regarding the party’s criminal activities in mid-October, and it is likely that the presentation of evidence will be completed in November before closing arguments are made in December. A verdict is unlikely to come before the first quarter of 2020.

The trial of 18 former lawmakers belonging to the neo-Nazi group first began four years ago, and there have been almost 400 days of hearings that have taken their toll on the group. A sign of the impact was seen during the July elections with the party’s failure to elect any lawmakers into Parliament. There have also been a series of defections from the party, including those of high-ranking officials. The infighting, leadership challenges and the recent move of the party from its Mesogeion Avenue headquarters in northern Athens indicate that the party is in crisis.

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Fyssas was murdered on 12 September in the Piraeus suburb of Keratsini. Roupakias, who has allegedly confessed to stabbing the musician, has been under house arrest since 18 March, 2016 – only leaving his home for the hearings when he was first questioned last July.

The case has been filled with complexities. For instance, one of the first issues that needed to be addressed was the lifting of parliamentary immunity protecting the implicated lawmakers. In April 2014 a decision was reached, however the immunity of party leader Nikos Michaloliakos and former lawmakers Yiannis Lagos and Christos Pappas was not lifted until June 2014. Since the trial began on 20 April, 2015, the case has been plagued with numerous problems such as finding an appropriate venue for the case which has seen more than 100 prosecution witnesses testify. The trial also faced a freeze following strike action by lawyers.