Army officers linked to more plots
Two pyrotechnicians arrested for court parcel bomb could be involved in other similar incidents
Citizen Protection Ministry officials are not ruling out the possibility that two military pyrotechnicians who were arrested last week for their involvement in the case of a parcel-bomb that was sent to the president of the Thessaloniki Appeals Court on February 12 may be linked to other terrorist plots, such as the attempted attack on the police riot unit headquarters in Athens last December.
The two uniformed officers, along with eight other suspects – four of whom are currently serving time in prison – are accused of forming a terrorist organization.
They have allegedly been linked to five separate attacks between June 2023 and their arrest last week. Responsibility for these attacks has been claimed by a group calling itself the “Revenge Partnership.”
Court documents seen by Kathimerini show that the two permanent non-commissioned officers were already – from mid-January 2024, a month before the envelope booby-trapped with explosives was dispatched in Thessaloniki – the focus of a clandestine investigation by the Anti-Terrorism Department.
On January 15, anti-terror officials were informed that one of the men, a 41-year-old Air Force officer who until recently worked at an explosives depot, was providing explosives to criminals with whom he was collaborating, “as well as to others involved in terrorism.”
The other suspect, an Army officer aged 47, was reportedly also being supplied with explosives by the 41-year-old.
There are, additionally, strong indications that the 47-year-old is the manufacturer of the envelope-bomb sent to Court of Appeals President Anastasia Anthopoulou, as his DNA was detected on the duct tape holding the device together.
The construction of the bomb, which never detonated, is thought to have been ordered by a convicted anarchist who is also being charged in the same case. He is serving a multi-year sentence for robbery and repeatedly threatened Anthopoulou from within prison in the spring of 2023 after she refused to accept his plea for a commuted sentence.
During the period of the military officers’ surveillance, investigators allegedly found that the 41-year-old suspect maintained contacts with criminals who had been in the same ward or even the same cell as the anarchist-robber.
Suspicious encounters with people with a “heavy” criminal record also surfaced.
