Three arrested in counterterrorism operation in Athens

Three people were arrested in a counter-terrorism operation on Wednesday, including a prison escapee.

According to information, authorities detained Yiannis Michalidis, an alleged member of the urban guerrilla group Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire, who had escaped from the agricultural prison of Tyrintha in the Peloponnese on June 2019.

Michailidis, who was accused in connection with an armed bank robbery in Vevento, northern Greece, in February 2013, was in 2015 given a 13-year prison sentence over an armed attack on members of the police force’s immediate response unit in Pefki, northern Athens.

He had been previously detained during a protest rally in Syntagma in February 2011 after he tried to shoot at police with a bow-and-arrow. He had since been dubbed the “Syntagma archer.”

The other two suspects are two females for whom no further information has been released.