Nikos Michaloliakos, founder and leader of the former party Golden Dawn and other stakeholders from the group ruled by Greek courts a criminal organisation face 13-year jail terms after a court rejected calls for them to remain free pending an appeal against their sentences.
Mr Michaliolakos was taken to Attica Police Headquarters (GADA) in Athens after it was decided that he and other members serve their sentences immediately. Mr Michaloliakos presented himself at Pefki police precinct on Thursday, along with his daughter Ourania and Eleni Zaroulia, his wife. Both his daughter and his wife followed from Pefki to GADA in a private car as Michaliolakos was taken to the central police offices and is being held on the seventh floor along with his cohorts George Germenis, Panagiotis Iliopoulos, Ilias Kasidiaris, Yiannis Kazantzoglou, Giorgos Patelis and Giorgos Tsakanikas – all of whom are waiting to be transferred to prison.
The court ruled that 38 of the 50 defendants would go to jail. Sources say that the 13 former MPs would be sent to a prison in Domokos and the rest would be divided among prisons in Domokos, Malandrinou and Trikala.
READ MORE: Lengthy sentences for Golden Dawn members: 500 years in total
Those sentenced were required to turn themselves in while others were arrested by police at their homes. Only one, Christos Pappas, disappeared.
“It is Pappas’ conscious choice not to appear before the authorities,” his lawyer Periklis Stavrianakis told Ethnos newspaper.
“My client has his views. He will weigh in on the fact that he may serve a sentence, which in the appellate court may not be upheld. In this case, who will give him back the years he spent in prison? It is currently his conscious choice not to appear before the authorities. I do not know what will happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow and what he will decide.”
