ATHENS – Seeing one of their colleagues released from jail after a year – serving a 13-year sentence, three more members of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party convicted of being part of a criminal, also want to be freed.

But an Athens appeals court ruled the three – Tasos Pantazis, Anastasios Anadiotis and Aristotelis Chrysafitis – have to stay behind bars pending their appeal of their sentence, said Kathimerini.

Pantazis, the former head of the Golden Dawn branch in Perama, received a 12-year sentence for participating in an attack on Egyptian fishermen at Ikonio in Perama, a western neighborhood of Piraeus, and an attack on Communist Party trade unionists.

Niki-Anastasia Mouzaki, one of the judges who heard the case, said Pantazis’ petition should be rejected because Golden Dawn, which Pantazis claimed has been broken up, is still active “but in concealed activities.”

There was a danger that Pantazis would reoffend, she added. As for the health problems he cited, they were not considered serious, high-profile prisoners in Greece sometimes released for saying they weren’t well.

Anadiotis, serving a seven-year sentence for participating in the murder of rapper Pavlos Fyssas, said he wanted to attend a graduate studies program that had accepted his application and that it was grounds enough for him not to serve his sentence.

The court rejected the petition of Aristotelis Chrysafitis, also jailed for seven years for the same charges as Anadiotis, as groundless, coming after a court in October suspended the sentence of former Nikea Golden Dawn branch leader, Giorgos Patelis although he was tied to the murder of Fyssas. He was released because he said his son had mental health problems but it wasn’t reported what they were or if they were verified.

That decision caused enough of a stink for the Supreme Court to review it at the request of chief prosecutor Vassilis Plotas but Patelis is still free and walking around.