Volkswacht Bodensee - Greek appeals court hands neo-Nazi leaders 13-year sentences

The court last week had already found several officials, including its founder-leader Nikos Michaloliakos, guilty of "running a criminal organisation".

Michaloliakos and five other officials were sentenced to 13-year jail terms -- but the 68-year-old leader will remain free on health grounds. His wife Eleni Zaroulia, a former Golden Dawn lawmaker, was however ordered to serve a five year term for participation in a criminal organisation.

Zaroulia had called migrants disease-carrying "sub-humans" in a 2012 speech in parliament.

More than 30 other party officials and members received jail sentences of four to 10 years. Most have already served their terms, or were granted conditional release.

Crimes attributed to the group include the savage beating of Egyptian fishermen in 2012 and the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in 2013.

"Today, I return home with the thought that I will no longer have to find myself among those who murdered my child and sowed hatred in society," Fyssas' mother Magda told reporters.

- Assault squads -

Golden Dawn leaders have always denied involvement in the attacks, which were carried out by the group's so-called "assault squads".

But in closing arguments, prosecutor Kyriaki Stefanatou in December said Michaloliakos had "complete control and knowledge of what was happening".

She called the paramilitary-style group a "true child of Nazi ideology".

Michaloliakos, a mathematician and protege of former Greek dictator Georgios Papadopoulos who has called the Holocaust a "lie", was granted conditional release from prison last year on health grounds.

At a first trial that took more than five years to finish, the court in 2020 concluded that Golden Dawn was a criminal organisation disguised as a political party. Defendants were convicted of crimes ranging from running a criminal organisation, murder and assault to illegal weapons possession.

- Nazi memorabilia -

One Golden Dawn lawmaker in 2013 attempted to strike then Athens mayor Giorgos Kaminis for blocking a "Greeks-only" food handout organised by the party.

Senior Golden Dawn figures still in detention include former party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, and former European Parliament member Yiannis Lagos, who was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and extradited from Belgium in 2021.

Kasidiaris's influence is believed to have been instrumental in getting a new hardline party, the Spartans, elected to parliament in 2023.

The xenophobic and antisemitic organisation created by Michaloliakos was for decades a fringe party, until Greece's 2010 debt crisis.

In its early years, Golden Dawn glorified Adolf Hitler in party publications, but later toned down its rhetoric, claiming instead to be nationalist.

The group capitalised on public anger over immigration and austerity cuts, entering parliament for the first time in 2012. It remained in parliament until 2019.

At the height of its influence, it was the country's third-biggest party, picking up around 400,000 votes.

It was considered to have significant support among police officers and even some senior Church officials, while priests and monks attended its rallies.

Michaloliakos accused mainstream parties of bankrupting the country, declaring in a 2012 speech: "These hands may occasionally (give Nazi salutes) but they are clean hands. They have not stolen."

At the original trial, prosecutors said Michaloliakos ran the party under a military-style hierarchy modelled on Hitler's Nazi party, with himself as leader for more than three decades.

A search of party members' homes in 2013 uncovered firearms, other weapons and Nazi memorabilia.

M.Betschart--VB