{"id":130052,"date":"2017-11-10T00:37:53","date_gmt":"2017-11-10T05:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=130052"},"modified":"2017-11-10T00:37:53","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T05:37:53","slug":"furlough-for-greek-extremist-serving-life-fuels-outrage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/11\/10\/furlough-for-greek-extremist-serving-life-fuels-outrage\/","title":{"rendered":"Furlough for Greek extremist serving life fuels outrage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: Greece (Photo by Dalibor Tomic\/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ATHENS, Greece \u2014 A convicted gunman for an extreme left-wing group who once was Greece’s most-wanted terrorist was granted a 48-hour furlough from an Athens prison Thursday, fueling a political debate on prison sentencing and law and order.<\/p>\n

Dimitris Koufodinas, 59, is serving life for participating in 11 of the 23 assassinations attributed to the now-defunct armed group November 17. His victims include the brother-in-law of the current conservative Greek opposition leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who described the furlough as \u201cinconceivable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The November 17 or 17N group evaded police for nearly 30 years until one of its members was arrested after a botched bomb attack in 2002. The event triggered numerous arrests and Koufodinas’ conviction the following year for the murders as well as for armed robberies and bomb attacks.<\/p>\n

The group’s victims included military officials and diplomats from the United States, Britain and Turkey, as well as prominent Greek businessmen and politicians.<\/p>\n

Casually dressed and smiling, Koufodinas walked out of the high-security Korydallos prison in Athens Thursday and was hugged by a small group of friends and supporters.<\/p>\n

The United States condemned his 2-day release and described Koufodinas as a \u201cconvicted terrorist.\u201d U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.S. Embassy in Athens had conveyed significant concerns about the furlough to the Greek government.<\/p>\n

According to police accounts, Koufodinas posed as a beekeeper and math teacher, but for years operated under the pseudonym Loukas as the 17N’s lead gunman, planner, recruiter and cashier.<\/p>\n

He described details of the organization’s attacks in a 2014 autobiography without referring to them in the first person.<\/p>\n

The conditions of Koufodinas’ time outside prison were set under a law passed in 1989. The furlough nonetheless touched off a spat between Greece’s left-wing government and the opposition New Democracy party. The conservative New Democracy accused the government of endangering public safety and urged the Justice Ministry to block his leave.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreeks are in shock at the sight of 17N’s chief killer, Dimitris Koufodinas, being granted a two-day leave. He is a terrorist who has not expressed a trace of remorse to the families of 11 people he murdered,\u201d party spokeswoman Maria Spyraki said.<\/p>\n

Greece’s National Association of Prison Wardens said Koufodinas had earned the right to request a leave.<\/p>\n

\u201cDimitris Koufodinas has had no disciplinary infringement while in prison and has met all the conditions required for a furlough,\u201d the association said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be an end to disputes over (rights) that are self-evident,\u201d the wardens groups said. \u201cThe law must be upheld.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ATHENS, Greece \u2014 A convicted gunman for an extreme left-wing group who once was Greece’s most-wanted terrorist was granted a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":116398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[32265,32266],"class_list":["post-130052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","tag-furlough","tag-greek-extremist","mauthors-derek-gatopoulos","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}