Spartan MPs to go on trial for electoral fraud on June 19
Eleven MPs elected with the far-right Spartans party will go on trial on June 19 on charges of defrauding voters in the 2023 general election.
A Supreme Court prosecutor claims that the parliamentarians ran in the election under instruction from a felon, Ilias Kasidiaris, a former leading figure in neo-Nazi Golden Dawn group, who is serving a total sentence of 13 years and six months for joining and directing the criminal organization.
Five of those lawmakers now sit as independents.
The Spartans party had barely registered in opinion polls before the June 2023 election until Kasidiaris endorsed it from his prison cell.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court debarred the Spartans from running in June’s European Parliament elections on the grounds that Kasidiaris is its real leader.
Also on Wednesday, Konstantinos Floros, one of the independents elected on a Spartans ticket, was detained after assaulting another MP in Parliament, during a debate over a defamation lawsuit.
