Anarchists who posted letter bombs to European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel were Tuesday found guilty of extremist acts by a special court in Athens.
Six members of the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, an anarchist group which claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks since 2008, were found guilty of participating in extremist acts. A seventh was found guilty on separate charges of burglary, theft and falsification.
Two others were acquitted by the special court sitting since January in Korydallos prison in an Athens suburb where most of the nine accused have been held.
Two of the accused, Haralambos Hatzimihelakis and Panayiotis Argyros, both 23, were found guilty of “forming and being members of a terrorist” group and instigating a 2009 bomb attack on the homes of Greece’s Interior Minister Panayotis Hinofotis and another former cabinet member.
The four others charged with serious crimes were found guilty of making bombs.
Sentencing was due later Tuesday, a judicial source said.
The last of several bomb attacks claimed by the group caused extensive damage to a courthouse in Athens in December.
The group shot to international attention last November for a series of letter bombs to foreign embassies in Greece and to four European leaders — Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso.
One of the letter bombs, which contained gunpowder, ignited and lightly injured a courier company staffer in Athens, but most were intercepted by police.
(source: afp)
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