The final two of the six suspected members of Revolutionary Struggle arrested last Sunday were remanded in custody on Friday, as the police gathered more information about how the terrorist group rented apartments in Athens they used as safe houses.
A magistrate decided that authorities had gathered enough evidence to warrant Evangelos Stathopoulos and Christoforos Kortesis being held in custody.
Stathopoulos denied playing any part in the organisation and argued that an injury suffered in a car crash several years ago had left him with serious health problems.
He added that between 2000 and 2007 he had to appear at his local police station twice a month after being released on bail following a conviction for another offense. Stathopoulos claimed that he was being persecuted for his political beliefs.
Kortesis’s lawyers argued that the charges against him were not specific enough for him to answer.
They said that this confirmed there was no evidence to link him to the terrorist group, which had been active since 2003.
The magistrate rejected both arguments.
Meanwhile, police confirmed that the gang used forged identification cards, found in the car of another suspect, Constantinos Gournas, to rent two apartments in Kypseli, near central Athens.
The fifth-story apartments were next to each other. Police only found balaclavas, handcuffs and gloves in one of the apartments.
The other property had been emptied 6 months ago. Officers believe that the gang rented the second apartment to avert any suspicion from their neighbours.
Police continued to search for a property where the group may have hidden their arms and explosives. As six suspected members of the Revolutionary Struggle extremist guerrilla group faced a prosecutor last week, officers of the police’s counterterrorism unit continued their search for a hideout containing explosives and weapons used by the organization.
The six who were arrested were Nikolaos Maziotis, aged 39, Panayiota Roupa, aged 41, Evaggelos Stathopoulos, aged 32, Christoforos Kortesi, aged 31, Sarantos Nikitopoulos, aged 32 and Constantinos Gournas, aged 30.
They were charged with membership of a terrorist group and causing explosions and weapons offenses in connection with a string of attacks on police and business and government targets over the past 7 years.
The suspects arrived at the main Athens court complex escorted by anti-terrorist police, and were whisked into the prosecutor’s office.
As they were leaving dozens of people who had gathered to chant s=logans in support of the detainees threw plastic bottles and scuffled with police, who responded with pepper spray.
Nikos Maziotis, the group’s suspected leader, was quoted as saying that he would not testify.
“These charges are politically motivated and so we will not defend ourselves,” Maziotis allegedly told the court.
Police are also seeking the hideout where the organisation stored its weaponry and explosives.
So far raids on apartments in Nea Philadelphia, northern Athens, have turned up only computer hard drives containing proclamations and hand-drawn sketches, not explosives and weapons.
Forensic experts on last week were examining bullet casings from a Kalashnikov assault rifle found in a remote spot on the slopes of Mount Hymettus by officers who had followed one of the six suspects there over the weekend ahead of their arrests.
Police believe the group had used the spot for firing practice.
Revolutionary Struggle first appeared in 2003, a year after authorities eradicated Greece’s deadliest left-wing group, November 17, and has bombed banks, government buildings and the Athens Stock Exchange, in 3 cases causing injuries to bystanders.
Its most spectacular hit was the 2007 rocket-propelled grenade attack on the heavily guarded U.S. Embassy, which caused minor damage but no injuries.
The U.S. government subsequently offered a $1 million reward for information leading to the capture of Revolutionary Struggle members.
The group also shot and severely wounded a riot policeman last year.
That attack came during a spike in anarchist violence that followed the fatal police shooting of an Athens teenager in December 2008 and days of rioting in Greek cities.
Police are expected to be looking to arrest more people who are suspected of being members of the terrorist group, sources said as more details emerged about the contacts between the six alleged members that have already been caught.