ATHENS — Five of those sentenced to serve prison sentences for their part in Golden Dawn had voluntarily presented themselves to police stations in their area on Thursday afternoon, after the court ruled that sentences for the majority on trial will not be suspended.

In addition to Ilias Kasidiaris, Giorgos Patelis and Giorgos Tsakanikas, Yiannis Kazantzoglou also gave himself up at the police station in Nikaia and Markos Evgenikos at the police station in Perama.

Ten were arrested in court, where they had gone to hear the final ruling, and taken straight to the transfers unit to be sent to prison.

All those convicted and sentenced to prison, whether they are arrested or voluntarily present themselves, will first be taken to the police headquarters in Athens where a special holding area has been created for them on the 7th floor, and then to the forensic investigations department for processing and the prosecutor for the execution of sentences, who will decide which correctional facility they will be sent to.

Subsequently, they will go to the transfers unit to be taken to prison.

According to sources, GD's leadership will be sent to the prison in Domokos and the rest divided among the prisons of Domokos, Malandrinou and Trikala.

Meanwhile, as a police official told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA), the police are fully ready to carry out arrests and have set up 20 arrest teams that are on standby at the locations of those sentenced in the trial, to arrest them if they do not voluntarily give themselves up.

This process may take some time, however, as most arrests will require the presence of a public prosecutor, since the majority are in their homes. Once in prison, all the convicts will remain in quarantine for 14 days as a precaution against the spread of Covid-19, with no contact with other inmates or with each other, if they are in conflict.

The court has sentenced the leadership of Greece s extreme-right Golden Dawn party to 13 years in prison, imposing the near-maximum penalty for running a criminal organization blamed for numerous violent hate crimes. The landmark ruling follows a five-year trial of dozens of top officials, members, and supporters of Golden Dawn, an organization founded as a Neo-Nazi group in the 1980s, that rose to become Greece s third-largest political party during a major financial crisis in the previous decade.