Far-left Greek terrorist granted 2-day furlough

By Magda Panoutsopoulou

ATHENS

A convicted far-left terrorist who is serving 11 life sentences in Greece for murder was granted his first two-day furlough and is expected to leave prison Thursday.

Dimitris Koufodinas was identified as a leader of the November 17 terror group in a major trial that followed his arrest.

Koufodinas, who has been in prison since 2003, had requested a furlough in the past but the Korydallos prison council had rejected it.

The November 17 terror group was active in Greece between 1975 and 2002. It is considered responsible for the assassination of 23 people in 103 attacks, namely on U.S., British, Turkish and Greek nationals.

Between 1991 and 1994, the group launched attacks targeting diplomats of the Turkish Embassy in Athens.

Turkish Press Attaché Cetin was killed in 1991 while Omer Haluk Sipahioglu, a counselor at the Turkish Embassy in Athens, was gunned down in front of his home in 1994.

Ambassador Deniz Bolukbasi, Nilgun Kececi, wife of the Turkish vice-consul, and driver Adil Yıldırım were also wounded in attacks reportedly carried out by the group.

On Jan. 1, 2014, one of the group’s members, Christodoulos Xiros, was granted , but he vanished soon after. He was apprehended a year later.

Opposition New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis condemned the latest decision regarding Dimitris Koufodinas, saying it was “inconceivable”.

“It's not just his despicable actions against democracy but because he's never expressed any remorse for these actions and remains an ideological instructor for a new generation of terrorists," Mitsotakis said Thursday on Twitter.

Mitsotakis's brother-in-law was gunned down by the terrorist group in 1989.

Later Thursday, Turkey criticized the two-day furlough granted to Koufodinas.

"It is not possible to understand how a terrorist who has repeatedly claimed the lives of our diplomats is given the opportunity to enjoy such an arrangement," Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said in a written statement.

"Displaying tolerance to a bloodthirsty terrorist in this manner is a sheer disrespect to the memory of our martyred diplomats," the statement said.

The U.S. also weighed in, condemning Athens' decision during an afternoon press conference.

"When some of these November 17th people who've been convicted of murder have been let out on furlough in the past, they've disappeared. So we obviously have some concerns about that," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters.

"We're concerned that he won't return," she added.

* Fatih Hafiz Mehmet and Michael Hernandez contributed to this story from Ankara and Washington respectively.