Video and photographic evidence made available to the magistrates investigating Golden Dawn is likely to lead to more charges being levelled against members of the neo-Nazi party and could even result in its MPs being accused of treason.
It emerged that digital evidence gathered from the homes of Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos and party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris contained dozens of videos and photos that could prove incriminating for the party, which denies being sympathetic to Nazi ideology and using violence.
Images leaked to the media show Kasidiaris brandishing a number of firearms in photographs and leading paramilitary-style training of Golden Dawn members. There are also pictures of Golden Dawn members performing Nazi salutes and one wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit.
In the meantime, other video recordings and photographs found in the possession of a hitherto unknown member of the party who took part in swearing-in ceremonies for new members reveal new information about the ideological nature of this neo-Nazi formation.
In one video recording, taken at a party meeting in a taverna some time before the May 2012 elections, Golden Dawn’s leader can be seen admitting that he is a Nazi.
“They say that we are the bad fascists, nationalists. The truth is that they are wrong; we are all that. Our aim is not to improve that which is currently in parliament or to correct the political forces that are corrupt and on their last legs, but finish them off once and for all,” Nikos Michaloliakos can be heard saying.
In dozens of other videos that appear to have been recorded during the swearing in of new members – in the presence of Michaloliakos – Golden Dawn members can be heard referring to “hanged necks” and “heavy axes”.
“If people want to know, yes I’m a Nazi and together we will change the world. They are all traitors and deserve the heavy axe,” says one speaker.
Another speaker told the Golden Dawn meeting that it was time to “kill the Jew hiding in all of us”.
In one clip that has been leaked to the media, a Golden Dawn member stands up, speaks and gives the Nazi salute facing Nikos Michaloliakos and Giorgos Germenis, who reciprocate the gesture.
Michaloliakos has been one of three Golden Dawn MPs held on remand since September on charges of forming and controlling a criminal organisation. Germenis was one of three MPs to be released on bail in the same probe.
Among the hundreds of photographs also found in the cache is one showing a man, dressed in the white gown and hood of the US racist group Ku Klux Klan, giving the Nazi salute with his back to Golden Dawn’s meander logo.
Other images show what appears to be the same hooded man at a meeting on the topic of ‘Speech on the antiracist law – Women’s Front Party’ and chatting to Golden Dawn members.
The hard drive includes photographs taken over the years. One shows an army officer giving the Nazi salute, another children attending propaganda classes.
A pdf document entitled ‘Principles of propaganda – Dr Goebbels’ was also saved on the hard drive.
The document is a translation of the principles used to promote the Nazi cause as recorded by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, in his diary.
Sources: enetenglish,
ekathimerini