Suspect tied to assault on GD MP at Pontic rally
A 59-year-old man was charged with assault on Tuesday after being identified in taped footage of a rally by Pontic Greeks in Thessaloniki on Monday where Golden Dawn officials and a neo-Nazi party lawmaker were targeted.
The suspect is alleged to have led an attack on a group of GD officials including the MP Christos Hatzisavvas, who can be seen in the video being punched and throwing back punches.
The incident in Thessaloniki came less than a week after New Democracy MP Giorgos Koumoutsakos was assaulted during a rally by Pontic Greeks in Athens by suspects believed to have links to GD.
Koumoutsakos blamed GD for the attack at the rally, which was attended by several MPs from the neo-Nazi party.
Pontic Greeks have organized rallies to protest recent comments by Education Minister Nikos Filis, according to which the slaughter of tens of thousands of ethnic Greeks living on the shores of the Black Sea by Turkish forces between 1914 and 1923 was ethnic cleansing and not genocide.
