Convicted neo-Nazi quits Athens Municipal Council
Ilias Kasidiaris, the convicted former spokesman of the now-defunct neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, has resigned from the Athens Municipal Council after being sworn into office in late December.
Kasidiaris resigned formally after being placed on administrative leave by the Decentralized Administration of Attica on the grounds of his conviction in 2020 of being part of the Golden Dawn criminal organization.
His seat on the council will now be filled by the runner-up on his party’s ticket in October’s local elections. Kasidiaris, who established his own far-right nationalist party, Ellines, in 2020, won the seat on the council with 8.3% of the vote.
Reacting to the news of Kasidiaris’ resignation, anti-fascist activist group KEERFA dismissed it as a “disorderly retreat” and is planning a protest rally on Wednesday in the downtown Athens district of Petralona where a 27-year-old Pakistani laborer, Shehzad Luqman, was stabbed to death by members of Golden Dawn on January 17, 2013.
