Patra mayor vows to keep fighting neo-Nazi Golden Dawn

Patra Mayor Costas Peletidis was cheered by a crowd of supporters on Monday as he left a courtroom in the western city following the postponement of his trial on charges of violation of duty.

The charges were brought against Peletidis in 2015 by Michalis Arvanitis, then a would-be MP for Golden Dawn, after the mayor refused to give the neo-Nazi party space in municipal offices during the pre-election period.

Peletidis’s trial is to resume on February 23.

On leaving the courtroom, he told cheering supporters that the Patra municipal authority would “continue its fight to stop Golden Dawn from passing on its ideology, propaganda and racist poison.”

“It’s a political issue regarding the protection of this city against racist messages,” he said, adding that “Patra will never become a place where those who want to divide us are active.”