The investigation into the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, whose leaders are awaiting trial on charges of operating a criminal gang, is spreading to more of its 18 lawmakers, six of whom have already been arrested, after the reported discovery of additional evidence.
Magistrates looking at what is reportedly more than 10,000 pages and voluminous digital evidence are set to order the arrest of more of the party’s lawmakers, unidentified sources told the newspaper Kathimerini. The suspects were not named.
The new evidence was said to have been found during the inspection of computers found at the homes of several prominent party deputies, including Christos Pappas, Giorgos Germenis and Panayiotis Iliopoulos, who already face criminal charges.
Magistrates Ioanna Klapa and Maria Dimitropoulou, who are perusing documents and other evidence seized from the homes of party leader Nikos Michaloliakos and party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, will resummon some of the nine MPs already facing charges for additional testimony, it was reported.
Germenis, Iliopoulos and another lawmaker, Stathis Boukouras, are due to defend themselves before the magistrates on January 11 on charges of belonging to a criminal organization.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who critics said had gone soft on the party to lure some of its more moderate types to his New Democracy Conservatives, ordered a crackdown in the wake of the murder in September of Pavlos Fyssas, an anti-fascist hip-hop artist, for which a man linked to Golden Dawn was arrested.
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