ATHENS – Enjoying his six-day vacation from mail – his fifth furlough this year – former Nov. 17 assassin mastermind walked with one of the leaders of the notorious Rouvikonas anarchists past some of scenes where the terrorist group killed people.
A smiling Dimitris Koufodinas, whose group killed 23 people – including five Americans attached to the US Embassy- had been seen walking around Greece’s capital with the anarchist leader, said Katherimini, without identifying him.
Rouvikonas has been on a long rampage of vandalizing and assaulting a number of targets, including foreign embassies, banks, government buildings, symbols of Capitalism and even offices of the ruling Radical Left SYRIZA that is riddled with terrorist and anarchist sympathizers and whose party has supported furloughs for Koufodinas.
The United States, which previously denounced vacations for the terrorist killer, has said nothing about this one as it came only days after a US-Greece Strategic Dialogue in Washington where the US declared Greece a “great ally,” while trying to expand American military presence in the country and help American investors.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had come to power swearing to remove any US military presence, take Greece out of NATO and forbid Greek troops on foreign soil but has reneged on all of them, leading American officials to say relations between the countries haven’t been so close in years, after US support for the military dictatorship from 1967-74.
Government officials have said all inmates in Greece are entitled to furloughs even those convicted of heinous crimes but so far the only one reported to be getting them is Koufodinas, who enjoys support within SYRIZA and was embraced on one release by the son of Nikos Voutsis, the party’s appointed Parliament Speaker.
In a message on social media, the Rouvikonas chief posted an image of himself walking next to Koufodinas, saying, “These streets were made for us to walk on.”
Police have been looking for Rouvikonas leaders but there was no explanation if whether Koufodinas was being trailed or why the anarchist wasn’t detained.