Europe

Home page

Europe

Greek Terror Attack Raises Chilling Concerns About Security Flaws

21 July 2010 00:25 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. When a gang of gun-toting extremists sprayed the entrance of an Athens-based television network with 14 bullets last February, a menacing message had been served, APA reports quoting aolnews.com website.

"We are sending an ultimatum to all journalists," warned the newly formed Sect of Revolutionaries in a terror tract published days after the drive-by shooting. "The period in which you were target-free is over."

And so it is.

Exactly 17 months after the Sect of Revolutionaries sounded its warning, police believe the group is behind the grisly killing of a 37-year-old investigative Greek journalist.

Sokratis Giolias, news editor of Thema 89.9, a private radio station, and a leading blogger known for posting blogs on some of the most rancid cases of corruption in Greece, was gunned down on the doorstep of his Athens home Monday.

The pre-dawn attack, say forensic experts, was waged by at least two gunmen who sprayed Giolias’ arms, groin, torso and head with 16 Parabellum bullets fired from two semiautomatic pistols, considered to be among the world’s most popular and widely used military handguns.

"He died instantly," said a senior police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of his proximity to the investigation. "There was no way he could have escaped the attack. They wanted him dead."

No group, including the Sect of Revolutionaries, has claimed responsibility for the brazen hit.

Still, the attack has rekindled criticism of Greece’s ailing effort to quash homegrown terrorism after signs -- and hopes -- that political extremism had melted away with the operational breakup of the country’s deadliest groups ahead of the 2004 Athens Olympics.

While Marxist categories and denunciations of capitalist and imperialist atrocities have become passe in Europe, terrorism continues to simmer in Greece. In 2008 alone, a rash of extremist groups surfaced, recruiting a new age of militants amid widespread anger over the police killing of a 15-year-old boy.

Since then, attacks have surged, with extremists feeding on popular resentment at the country’s feckless political elite and, most recently, austerity measures prescribed by Western monetary institutions. What’s more, new recruits have taken to what experts call a show of ferocious nihilism, spurning the leftist-leaning ideologies of their predecessors.

"What we’re seeing played out now is violence for the sake of violence. Complete disregard for anything else. No politics. No ideology," said Mary Bossis, a university professor and a leading authority in Greek terrorism. "Terrorism with an ideological platform has eclipsed," she told AOL News.

Authorities in Athens say they anticipate a terror tract by the Sect of Revolutionaries to shed light on the motives of the group, which made its debut in 2009 by launching an attack against an Athens police station.

As the first journalist to be gunned down by terrorists in over two decades, Giolias’ killing has sent shock waves across the nation, keeping Greeks glued to their television sets, watching details of his harrowing pre-dawn execution unfold.

"They rang his doorbell, claiming his car was being stolen," said a police official involved in the investigation. "When he went down to open, they nailed him." His pregnant wife was watching from the balcony, and his 2-year-old was sleeping.

By some accounts, the investigative journalist was preparing to expose a major case of corruption. Others, however, suggest he may have been targeted for allegedly exposing details of the group’s identity in his blogs.

Either way, the group had made its lethal intentions known more than a year ago.

"The question," quips Bossis, "is what have authorities done, since then." Officials said Giolias had not received any death threats or requested discreet police surveillance.

Last month, unknown terrorists moved to kill the country’s public order minister, sending a booby-trapped parcel bomb to his office. The minister, Michalis Chrysochoidis, escaped death, but his security chief was killed almost instantly after opening the parcel.