Golden Dawn trial resumes after summer recess

Almost four years after the September 18, 2013, murder of rapper Pavlos Fyssas by a self-confessed member of Golden Dawn, the trial into the far-right party’s alleged criminal activities resumed after the summer recess at a specially designed court in Korydallos Prison on Tuesday.

The trial prompted by the brutal slaying of the outspoken songwriter and singer in the Piraeus suburb of Keratsini started in April 2015 and has so far heard testimony from 112 witnesses on the prosecution’s list of 131 individuals with evidence to back the accusation that Golden Dawn is a criminal organization structured along a strict hierarchy that determines its members’ actions.

At issue are Fyssas’s murder, but also attacks by members of the neo-Nazi party on members of the Communist-affiliated union PAME as well as on migrant workers and individuals opposed to the party.

The trial resumed on Tuesday with the testimony of Theodoros Pisimisis, an employee at the municipal authority of Halandri, who was assaulted by about two dozen Golden Dawn supporters protesting the imprisonment of their fellow party members while enjoying a day out in the center of the northern Athenian suburb.

“I was in Halandri with my wife and granddaughter on a Saturday morning. I saw a group of people coming in the distance, shouting slogans. I stopped to see what is was all about. There were around 50 to 60 people, men and women, aged around 35 to 40, most of them young. They were shouting ‘Freedom to the imprisoned fighters’ and ‘Blood, honor, Golden Dawn.’ I realized they were Golden Dawn supporters. They were marching and handing out flyers,” Pisimisis told the court. “When I realized who they were, I felt this numbness. They didn’t intimidate me; I have my own political ideas and opinions. I was annoyed by the climate of fear and became angry. I felt it was my duty to react.”