EnetEnglish.gr, 09:41 Wednesday 7 May 2014
Jailed MPs to be taken to parliament in handcuffs
House to vote on whether to remove their parliamentary immunity from prosecution
Updated At: 10:07 Wednesday 7 May 2014
Golden Dawn MP Yiorgos Germenis and now independent MP Stathis Boukouras granted permission to attend vote on stripping their parliamentary immunity on criminal charges
Yiorgos Germenis (Photo: Reuters)
Two jailed MPs elected for Golden Dawn in the last election will be led from prison to parliament on Wednesday in handcuffs to attend a vote on whether they should be stripped of their parliamentary immunity from prosecution.
Yiorgos Germenis, who remains in Golden Dawn, and Stathis Boukouras, who was expelled by the neonazi party in March, were granted permission to attend the vote. The MPs are expected to remain in handcuffs until they reach the house.
Both MPs were remanded in custody in January on charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives with the intent of supplying a criminal organisation.
Parliament will also decide on withdrawing immunity from two other MPs elected for Golden Dawn: Nikos Michos, held on on firearms and explosives charges as well as a drugs-related charge, and Valantis Alexopoulos, accused of joining and running a criminal organisation. Alexopoulos resigned from the party in March.
According to an announcement made on Tuesday, the debate will be carried out in accordance with article 108, paragraph 1, which gives an MP the right to address the plenum when objecting to the public prosecutor's demand to remove his or her immunity from prosecution.
'Criminal organisation'
Meanwhile, it emerged on Tuesday that the investigating magistrates involved in preparing the case file against the four MPs believe that Golden Dawn was founded in 1987 as a criminal organisation with "political and operational branches".
Ioanna Klapa and Maria Dimitropoulou said Golden Dawn, which began as a small and tight-knit group involved in neo-Nazi indoctrination, "morphed into a political group under the same name, Popular Union-Golden Dawn, following the same ideological direction as Adolf Hitler's Nazi party.
In their charges, the two investigators noted that their "political" section focused on "destroying the enemies of the nation", which for the party included migrants, Roma and anyone not belonging to the so-called Aryan or Caucasian race. These aims were in direct violation of the Greek constitution and international treaties that guarantee the full protection of people living in the Greek state without discrimination on the basis of nationality, race, language, religion or political beliefs.
The "operational" section, they said, ran along hierarchical, military lines and and physically trained members to participate in attack units to intimidate opponents.
The magistrates said the four MPs were members of and directors in the crime organisation whose illegal acts - including homicide, attempted homicide, and arson attacks - they knew and lauded.
Among the acts that Golden Dawn members perpetrated, according to the two magistrates, are the murder of rapper Pavlos Fyssas, the murder of Pakistani worker Shehzad Luqman, the attempted homicide of members of the communist trade union Pame, and attacks against various social initiatives in Athens.
EnetEnglish, ANA-MPA