Six people arrested in Athens yesterday, including including two suspected members of the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire, will face court over charges of terrorism, according to reports.
Greece’s Chief of Police Lefteris Oikonomou told reporters that the arrests came amid “serious indications” that a new terrorist attack was being planned, Kathimerini says.
Kathimerini reports police seized heavy weaponry and explosives in raids across Athens and several other cities on the weekend.
According to Kathimerini , the weekend’s raids turned up three Scorpion sub-machine guns, three Kalashnikov assault rifles and seven handguns, as well as 50 kilograms of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (ANFO), 200 grams of TNT, ammunition and four hand grenades.
Police also discovered a rucksack containing a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a Scorpion sub-machine gun and ammunition on farmland near Halkidiki, northern Greece, Kathimerini reports.
The charges do not identify their terrorist organisation, but previous arrest warrants against two of the suspects connected them with the radical Greek anarchist group Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire.
Greek police chief Lefteris Oikonomou said that ballistic tests on the weapons seized during Saturday’s raids have failed so far to connect the suspects to any known terrorist attacks.
Police had hoped the raids would establish a connection between the Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire and another Greek radical group, Sect of Revolutionaries.
Of the two, the sect has been the most violent one, killing an anti-terrorism police officer guarding a witness in a terrorism trial in June 2009, and a journalist in July.