Key defendant in Golden Dawn trial admits to making call leading to Fyssas murder

One of the key witnesses in the ongoing trial against the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn on Thursday testified to making the call that set off a chain of events culminating in the murder of rapper Pavlos Fyssas in the Piraeus suburb of Keratsini in the early hours of September 18, 2013.

Ioannis Aggos, a member of the party's chapter in nearby Nikaia, told the court on the first day of testimony from the defendants in the four-year-old trial that he had alerted a party official that he had seen Fyssas sitting at a cafe-bar in Keratsini, where the musician was watching a soccer game with friends.

Under intense questioning from the president of the three-judge court, Maria Lepeniotou, Aggos said that he had been sitting at the table beside that of the activist musician and his friends at the Korali cafe-bar on the night of September 17 when he called Ioannis Kazantzoglou, a higher-ranking member of Golden Dawn's Nikaia branch, and reported Fyssas' whereabouts.

Aggos' testimony is crucial for the prosecution, which argues that his phone call triggered a series of other calls higher up Golden Dawn's chain of command, which ended with a “hit squad” being dispatched to attack Fyssas.

The prosecution says it has evidence showing that moments after receiving Aggos' call, Kazantzoglou called the Nikaia chapter chief Giorgos Patelis, who in turn notified Nikaia MP Yiannis Lagos. The lawmaker allegedly went on to send out a group message to several party members instructing them to gather at the chapter's offices.