[ALBSA-Info] Terrorism in Greece

[Agron Alibali]

Financial Times (London) 


January 23, 2001, Tuesday USA Edition 2 

WORLD NEWS - EUROPE: Greece admits to terrorism
failings 

By KERIN HOPE 

ATHENS 


Greece's Socialist govern-ment yesterday admitted its
record on fighting terrorism was unsatisfactory after
a prominent opposition deputy was injured in a bomb
blast outside his home in Piraeus port. 

Vassilis Michaloliakos, a deputy for the New Democracy
party, was hit by flying glass and marble fragments.
Witnesses said the bomb was detonated by two young men
on a motorcycle as Mr Michaloliakos entered his
apartment block on Sunday. 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the
attack. But experts said it might have been staged by
November 17, a leftwing terrorist group that has
carried out 23 assassinations since the mid-1970s.
None of its members has been arrested. 

A government spokesman said results so far from a
stepped-up campaign against terrorism were "not what
we'd hoped for". The public order ministry overhauled
the police's counter-terrorism unit and began
co-operation with UK experts after the assassination
last June of Brigadier Stephen Saunders, military
attache at the British Embassy in Athens. 

Greece's efforts to crack down on terrorism have come
under international scrutiny as preparations move
ahead for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. 

The Socialists are under pressure to approve
anti-terrorism legislation that would include witness
protection schemes and permit terrorism trials to be
held in camera. 

Michalis Stathopoulos, the justice minister, yesterday
raised fears the government might backtrack on its
pledge to catch up with November 17. In an interview
with the daily newspaper Kathimerini, Mr Stathopoulos
said he saw "no need" for an anti-terrorism law. 


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