Suspected jihadist given until Monday to prepare his defense
Greece’s anti-terror unit arrested a 27-year-old Syrian member of ISIS on Thursday after a raid at the Eleonas migrant camp in western Athens where he had been staying with his wife and children.
He appeared before an Athens prosecutor and was given until Monday to prepare his defense, during which time he will be kept in custody at the police’s central Athens headquarters.
The suspect reportedly admitted to interrogators that he was an ISIS member and had participated in killings. He was charged with membership of a terrorist organization and direct complicity in murders as a terrorist act. Greece’s new Criminal Code allows judicial authorities to try people for terrorist acts committed abroad.
The 27-year-old had reportedly been under surveillance for some time by the Counterterrorism Service and authorities said he appears in a video showing ISIS fighters that was released in 2014.
He entered Greece on March 28, 2018 and applied for asylum, which had yet to be granted.
Sources told Kathimerini that just a few days before his arrest, the 27-year-old had posted a message on Facebook calling for the torching of the Eleonas camp, though the post did not come to the attention of the authorities.
