Galery

2

1

The Greek police have found hundreds of firearms in an apartment in the coastal village of Artemida in Athens. The police are comparing the arsenal with that of the terrorist organization "17 November" and argue that it might be even greater. "We are constantly unloading boxes of hundreds of weapons, pistols and thousands of cartridges. They were sent from a European country to a lawyer who seems to have been in Germany in recent days."

According to police, there are MG-3, MG-42 and MP-44 guns among the weapons, some of which are very rare. "The case has many similarities with the last November case of transferring weapons through the airport. We have had information for many years that there is a large number of weapons in this region but we never imagained we would find such a quantity," said a senior police source.

The data reveal that the recipient of the weapons is a 53-year-old lawyer from the suburb of Spata, who is also the owner of the residential building. He was a councillor and until last December – the president and sponsor of a local football team, competing in the fourth group. The lawyer was elected a member of the municipal council in Spata for two terms - from 1995 to 1998 and from 1998 to 2000. The ballots were independent, but the applicants still had "weak ties" with New Democracy.

Sources claim that several businessmen have recently filed a complaint against him with accusations of threats and extortion in connection with the sale of cars. This is the only case in which the lawyer is being investigated for involvement in any criminal activity. Residents of the neighbourhood described him as a quiet man who was mainly dealing with cases of civil law in the areas of Artemida and Spata. The football team has never created problems causing unrest in stadiums during matches. The lawyer has three children and owns a large number of properties in the area. Among the buildings owned by him are those occupied by the police.
 
Greek services in cooperation with their counterparts abroad have launched an investigation to establish the identity of those who sent the weapons in the name of the lawyer. They are searching for other members of the specific network of weapons trafficking. The police believe the weapons in Artemida are hardly connected to the actions of the groups causing unrest in Athens. They say it is a simple criminal case involving organized groups of Greeks and foreigners.

The police noted that in many cases of organized robberies detected to date they had information that the weapons used in them were delivered to the offenders from the region of Artemida.

Meanwhile, a new organization named "12 February Movement" claimed responsibility for placing the explosive mechanism in a train of the Athens underground station of Egaleo on 25 February this year, the members of which published a manifesto on the Internet.

The police confirmed that the text is original "for one single reason: indeed, there was a young girl among the passengers, who got out just before the doors of the last train closed, just as stated in the text." Police officers were surprised by the moderate tone of the manifesto, which is not warning of new attacks. However, it is alarming that they took the name from the date, on which about 50 sites in Athens were burned and dozens of others were destroyed."

The manifesto states that the bomb was meant to explode while the train was manoeuvring in order to change its course. The organization chose the underground for the target of the attack, because of the decision of its management to close the central stations during street riots.

The members of the "12 February Movement" claimed to belong to a "widespread radical space" and support the conduct of a "struggle in different ways." They said, "We start a dialogue in the bowels of the revolutionary movement."

The manifesto states that the bomb in the underground did not explode due to "a defect in the lamp." The police, however, believe that "this was not the reason why the device did not explode." They said the problem was in the sealing of the gasoline container.

The police define the "12 February Movement" as "a new armed group with a low potential, experimenting with attacks against specially selected targets."