Convicted GD official was real leader of Spartiates, says top court

Greece’s Supreme Court said it banned on Wednesday the far-right Spartiates (Spartans) party from running in this year’s elections for the European Parliament because its real leader is a jailed politician from neo-Nazi Golden Dawn (GD).

The court said that a decisive role for the banning of the party was the criminal charges brought by the Supreme Court prosecutor against 11 MPs originally elected on the Spartiates ticket on suspicion of deceiving voters in a June 2023 national election by taking guidance from Ilias Kasidiaris, a former leading figure of GD, who is serving a total sentence of 13 years and six months for joining and directing the criminal organization.

Five of those lawmakers are now sitting as independents.

“It appears that the Spartiates party, whose real leader is Ilias Kasidiaris […] promotes a policy that does not respect democracy and aims to weaken and destroy the democratic polity and the institutions of the rule of law, in particular by the use of violence or the incitement to violence, as well as the justification thereof, the promotion of totalitarian ideologies, the spread of racist and intolerant ideas and xenophobia, the approval of crimes against humanity, hatred against persons and groups, actions and declarations that threaten the peaceful coexistence of social groups in the country,” the judges said in their 122-page opinion published late Wednesday.

Kasidiaris and the 11 deputies “offered their party as a cover to Ilias Kasidiaris to form a new party, making it easier for him to circumvent the eligibility restrictions set by the electoral legislation,” the court added.

The Spartans party had barely registered in opinion polls before the June 2023 election until Kasidiaris endorsed it from his prison cell.