Court rejects Golden Dawn motion to remand witness
The judges in the trial against neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn on Thursday adjourned proceedings until November 4 after rejecting a motion from the defense to order an eye-witness remanded for perjury.
The lawyer of Christos Pappas, party leader Nikos Michaloliakos’s second-in-command, demanded the arrest of Dimitris Melachrinopoulos, a friend of Pavlos Fyssas who was with the rapper on the night in September 2013 when he was stabbed to death by self-proclaimed Golden Dawn member Giorgos Roupakias. He said Melachrinopoulos should be held until the end of the trial – which is expected to run for several months – so his claims can be investigated. The judges rejected the motion, saying there was insufficient evidence to hold a witness for such an extended period of time.
Melachrinopoulos was testifying for the second day on Thursday in regards to the events that led up to Fyssas’s fatal stabbing. He defended certain incongruities between his initial testimony to police two years ago and his later claims to investigating prosecutors, saying that he had also been assaulted by the same group of black-clad men who circled in on Fyssas on the night of the attack, outside a bar in Keratsini, near Piraeus.
He also assured the court that he was certain of his identification of two suspects who were allegedly part of the group of attackers that prevented Fyssas from fleeing as they waited for Roupakias to arrive to deal the fatal blow.
