The anti-terrorism service is checking for possible connections of the perpetrators of the cold-blooded murder in Neo Iraklio with terrorist organizations by carefully examining all proclamations and messages of these organizations in recent times.
The authorities are checking all possibilities, including the possibility that a new terrorist organization, or some of the organizations that are already known to the anti-terrorism service, lie behind the attack.
The two victims - George Foundoulis (left) and Manos Kapelonis (right)
The service has been expecting a major bloody attack lately, and investigators believe that the murder of Pavlos Fyssas by Golden Dawn member Roupakyas has acted as a catalyst and changed the purpose of terrorists who have been preparing another attack for months.
The "Sect of Revolutionaries"
Authorities have found a lot of similarities with the far-left group "Sect of Revolutionaries" in terms of the way in which the perpetrators escaped from the crime scene. It is possible that the group may have returned to the scene of the double murder of the two members of Golden Dawn in Neo Iraklio three and a half years after the murder of journalist Sokratis Giolias.
The organization has been "silent" after its last attack in 2010, the victim of which was the journalist who was killed with 16 bullets. The perpetrators used a 9 millimetre weapon both at this murder and at the killing of police officer of the anti-terrorism service Nektarios Savas, with 24 bullets in June 2009: a pistol in the first case and a "Scorpio" submachine gun in the other case.
Moreover, with the proclamation sent after the murder of Giolias, there was a picture of the arsenal of the terrorist group showing "Zastava" pistols, similar to those used for the double murder in Neo Iraklio.
Another common feature of the modus operandi of the "sect" and murderers in Neo Iraklio is that they killed their victims by shooting them in the head.
Nikos Maziotis
The anti-terrorism service has also put "under the microscope" the person most wanted for his involvement in the terrorist group "Revolutionary Struggle", Nikos Maziotis, who has been moving freely for a year and a half together with his co-accused wife Panagiota Roupa, after the decision of the magistrates to release them because of the expiry of the 18-month pre-trial detention before their court case was finished.
Since then, Maziotis and Roupa have been missing. After the murder of Pavlos Fyssas, they published a letter on the Internet, which refers to Golden Dawn and the need for armed struggle, noting the following:
"We have to fight and accept the harsh truth that if we want to win, we must go on the offensive. However, not as 'afflicted, who protest against the authoritarian regime', who passively accept the system’s violence as inevitable and who are killed by neo-Nazis of the capitalist system and the state, but as people who try to defeat it."
Officers of the anti-terrorism service also pay attention to the fact that a member of the "Revolutionary Struggle" was shot in January 2009 and an employee of the riot forces was seriously wounded near the Culture Ministry as a reaction to the murder of 15 year-old student Alexandros Grigoropoulos by policeman Epaminondas Korkoneas.
The group "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei"
One of the possible scenarios examined by the anti-terrorism service is that members of the group "Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei" are responsible for the double murder in Neo Iraklio and are working in collaboration with the Italian terrorist organization FAI within a common plan codenamed "Phoenix."
Although terrorists of the "Fire Nuclei" group have never recorded a murder so far, the police are checking this version as well, since the group has attacked offices of Golden Dawn in Athens and Aspropyrgos with bombs in the past.
The "Group of People’s Fighters"
Investigators of the anti-terrorism service are also checking the terrorist "Group of People’s Fighters." This group showed itself for the first time in January 2013 with a provocative action, when its members unsuccessfully tried to hit with a grenade launcher the RPG headquarters of New Democracy on Singrou Avenue. After the unsuccessful attempt, a member of the group fired with a "Kalashnikov" against the building.
In all cases, the police have not ruled out any version of who may be behind the deadly attack so far, at least until they have a statement which assumes the responsibility for the double murder.