Golden Dawn official held over brutal beating of student

Police on Saturday detained a 42-year-old official of Golden Dawn in connection with a violent attack on Friday on a 24-year-old student in the Athens neighborhood of Ambelokipi by a group of assailants believed to be linked to the neo-Nazi party.

The 42-year-old, who works at the neo-Nazi party’s Athens headquarters on Mesogeion Avenue and used to work in the office in Parliament of GD leader Nikos Michaloliakos, was positively identified by witnesses to the attack though he denies any involvement.

The witnesses told police that they saw a group of people affiliated with GD attack the 24-year-old and beat him. The assailants took his bag, which contained his cellphone and documents, according to witness accounts.

The student was being treated for head injuries in the capital’s Erythros Stavros Hospital and is expected to be questioned by police when he has recovered.

The attack on the 24-year-old came just a few hours after unknown assailants used sledgehammers to vandalize GD’s headquarters.

In a statement, leftist SYRIZA slammed the “reappearance of Golden Dawn death squads” and said “we cannot allow the specter of neo-Nazism to return to the streets of Greece and Europe.”