ATHENS – Six out of nine Greeks accused of terror offences made a bid for freedom on Monday as they were waiting to be returned to their cells after refusing to attend their trial, the ANA news agency reported.
Dozens of supporters of the defendants also clashed with plain-clothes officers in the courtroom and police reinforcements were called in to restore order, a judicial source said. The nine and four others who are still at large and being tried in absentia are accused of targeting foreign embassies in a bombing campaign last year carried out by the anarchist Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei group.
The trial had already been halted within hours of its opening last week in the high security Korydallos prison near Athens when the accused protested entry controls to the court. At that time they said they would stage another protest and refuse to attend further hearings if visitors continued to be forced to hand over their identity cards to be photocopied prior to entering the courtroom. The judge has defended the procedure, saying it reflects normal security routines inside a prison.
ANA said that six of the accused who are being held in the prison during the trial escaped from the court ante-room where they had been taken after refusing to attend the hearing. They were pursued round the prison yard and caught after the police officer in charge called for help from colleagues in the court, ANA said. In fighting inside the courtroom, sympathisers of the accused set on two journalists they accused of filming the proceedings on their mobile phones.
The judge adjourned the trial until Tuesday but the accused say they will not return to court for further hearings or be represented by lawyers, and will refuse to eat food supplied by the authorities, relying only on produce brought to them from outside. The suspects, aged between 19 and 30, are facing charges of “belonging to a terrorist organisation,” punishable by 10 to 25 years in prison.
