Mayoral candidate accuses jailed terrorist of trying to blackmail judges
Costas Bakoyannis, the regional governor of Central Greece who is running for Athens mayor, accused on Tuesday a jailed terrorist of blackmailing judicial officials into granting him a new prison leave.
Bakoyannis' father was assassinated by the now defunct November 17 terror group in 1989.
Dimitris Koufodinas was turned down last week on the grounds that he has never expressed remorse for this crimes, which include the assassination of 11 people for the N17 extreme left terrorist organization.
He started a hunger strike at the start of the month to protest against the rejection of his request for what would have been his seventh furlough.
“A democracy cannot be blackmailed because democracy is all of us. One man cannot blackmail 10 million Greeks. This cannot be accepted,” he told private TV channel ANT1 in a question about the terorist.
Bakoyannis, 40, is the nephew of conservative opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis. His father was assassinated by the group in 1989.
