Posted on 12/07/2003 4:36:41 PM PST by yonif
ATHENS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Police were sealing off streets around a top-security Athens prison where judges deliver verdicts on Monday in the murder trial of suspected members of the November 17 guerrilla group that plagued Greece for decades.
Among the 19 defendants, including the Marxist group's alleged founder, some are accused of murdering 23 Greeks as well as British, U.S. and Turkish diplomats in a reign of fear that began with the 1975 killing of CIA Athens chief Richard Welch.
Police said that before dawn, hundreds of officers would line the streets leading to the special court built in the Korydallos prison.
"We have information there may be rallies or attacks outside the prison during the verdicts," a police source said.
Radical leftists have protested in support of the suspects during the nine months of the trial.
The group taunted authorities with rocket attacks, bombings, drive-by shootings and bank robberies that made November 17 the most feared threat to next August's Olympic Games in Athens.
They eluded authorities until a botched bombing attempt last year led to the first capture and off a hunt that led to all the arrests.
Defendants include a beekeeper, a religious icon painter, four sons of a Greek Orthodox priest and one woman.
Named after the day in 1973 when a student uprising was crushed by the then ruling junta, November 17's last victim was British defence attache Stephen Saunders, gunned down on his way to work on a busy Athens road in 2000.
BEEKEEPER IS SUSPECTED CHIEF ASSASSIN
It also killed four Americans and two Turkish diplomats.
November 17 sought the overthrow of capitalism and a nationalist Marxist government.
It was born during the era of 1960's-1970's radicalism that also spawned Germany's Baader-Meinhof gang and Italy's Red Brigades, groups that have now mainly disappeared into history.
A three-judge panel -- since terrorism charges are involved there is no jury -- will deliver verdicts on 2,500 counts in a session expected to last several hours.
The court has sifted through thousands of pages of evidence, and heard more than 400 witnesses and 65 defence and prosecution lawyers since the trial started in March.
A 20-year statute of limitation for murder means there will be no punishment for November 17's first four assassinations, including Welch's killing.
"Even if they are found guilty and jailed for life they will still see their children. My child can't see his father because he is six feet under," said Hermione Rousetis, widow of Panayotis Rousetis, a government driver gunned down in 1985.
Among those expected at Monday's verdicts are Athens Mayor and Olympic Games host Dora Bakoyiannis, whose parliamentarian husband Pavlos Bakoyiannis was gunned down by the gang in 1989.
Suspected November 17 leader Alexandros Giotopoulos, son of Greece's most famed Trotskyite, is charged with 963 crimes, including planning every attack. He could face 19 life sentences. Greece does not have the death penalty and some convicted murderers -- unless they get multiple sentences -- can win release after about 20 years.
Apart from Giotopoulos, the other key defendant is the group's accused chief assassin Dimitris Koufodinas, a beekeeper known by other suspects as "Poison Hand" for his shooting skills. He is charged with nine murders.
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