Former GD legislator rejects links to neo-Nazi party, claims he attempted suicide
Former Golden Dawn legislator Stathis Boukouras on Monday refused to answer magistrates’ questions when he faced them on charges of illegal possession of a weapon and insisted that he had been wrongly implicated in crimes linked to the neo-Nazi party, claiming to have tried to hang himself twice in pretrial custody.
Boukouras, who quit the neofascist party in March but remains in Nafplio Prison pending trial on charges of belonging to a criminal organization, was in the magistrates’ office for two hours but refused to answer questions according to sources who said he cited his “right to remain silent.”
The former Corinth MP, who now stands as an independent in Parliament, appeared recalcitrant, the same sources said, adding that he had never been “one of them” during his association with the party and that his implication in criminal activities had pushed him into depression. “I am a dead man,” he is said to have told the magistrates.
As regards the shotgun which led to the new set of charges against him, Boukouras is said to have played it down, claiming that “most residents of the provinces have a shotgun for hunting,” but he was unable to explain why the gun possessed multiple chambers unlike most hunting weapons.
On Tuesday the magistrates leading the probe into Golden Dawn are to hear testimony from five of the party’s MPs – Constantinos Barbaroussis, Antonis Gregos, Polyvios Zisimopoulos, Artemis Matthaiopoulos and Giorgos Germenis.
