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The shootout between gangsters and DIAS police officers in the Athens district of Patisia ended with no injuries.

The police officers noticed a Skoda car shortly after 20:00 hrs in which there were three passengers. The car seemed suspicious to them and the check showed that actually it was stolen. The police officers tried to verify the passengers’ identity but the driver sped the car away as soon as he sensed their presence.

The suspects’ car turned near the hospital in Patisia and entered the opposite lane of traffic but was blocked by a car passing there. Then the suspects got out of the car and started firing with Kalashnikovs at the police officers who responded to the fire, however, without causing injuries.

The gangsters threatened a passing bus driver with their weapons immediately after the shooting. He left the bus and they escaped by it.  

The suspects headed towards the suburb of Agii Anargiri where they hi-jacked another car and escaped in Ilion. The subsequent police operation to find them was not successful.

An investigation was held after the shooting in Patisia. The police officers collected the bullets fired from the criminals’ weapons in order for the ballistics experts to examine them.  Detection of fingerprints or other clues that could help apprehend the criminals was performed.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Terror Service has found evidence of the connection between the young terrorists captured a few days ago and the organization Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei. In one of the computers in the secret hiding place in Volos, the Anti-Terrorist Service have found manifesto drafts and manifestos that link the captured to the terrorist activity of sending parcels bombs last November.

According to the Greek police spokesman Athanasios Kokalakis, the authorities have found the manifesto on the sending of 14 parcel bombs to the offices of European leaders and foreign embassies in Athens, a manifesto on taking responsibility for sending an envelope containing an explosive mechanism to the Minister of Justice Haris Kastanidis and a manifesto entitled "International Revolutionary Front – A Call for Solidarity with the Guerrillas from the Armed Group Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, with the revolutionaries and people accused for the same case (the trial on the 17^th of January 2011)." All three manifestos have been published on the Indymedia website.

The police also announced that a Nissan car stolen from Larissa was found about a kilometer away from the secret hiding place in Volos. Plates stolen in Athens from a car of the same brand were placed on it. 

This very car was stolen at about 21:00 hrs on the 10^th of March and it is believed that the captured would use it during the robbery of the National Bank’s branch in Volos as the found notes suggest.  

The investigations of the Anti-Terrorist Service continue, and police made a new appeal the citizens who have information about the persons captured to relay it to the authorities.

The five captured for involvement in the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei refused to testify in substance before the magistrate judge, stating that they do not recognize the legal procedure. Only Costas Papadopoulos captured in the Athens suburb of Holargos testified and said that he is not connected with the terrorist organization. He described himself as an anarchist, adding that his arrest is an attempt to criminalize his social relations. Kostas Papadopoulos was freed but restrictive measures were imposed on him.

According to the indictments against them, the remaining five illegally possessed the weapons found during the anti-terrorist campaign in Piraeus and Nea Smyrni last December. A scanned fake ID card was found during the same action which is believed to have been used by Michalis Nikolopoulos, the brother of the captured Georgios Nikolopoulos, to rent an apartment in Nea Chalkidona. Olga Ikonomidou’s footprint was also found there - she was also captured by the police in Volos.