At the hearing on May 24th Judge A. Yfanti once again started the session without waiting for all the co-defendants to arrive. The comrades George Polydoros and Angeliki Spyropoulou entered the courtroom after the hearing had already begun.
A motion from the CCF comrades to remove the presiding judge was deliberated over by the same court who denied the motion and kept the same judge.
At the hearing, the comrade George Polydoros read a statement saying that the judge is unfit to direct the trial, recalling various incidents in which the judge had threatened and taunted the accused along with his insistence of conducting the trial without lawyers. The comrade also stated: “What to do with the representatives of the judiciary who have judged and imprisoned my brother, the mother of Christos and Gerasimos Tsakalos and the wife of the latter? We do not know, but the anarchist urban guerrillas will provide the response”.
A request from the CCF’s lawyers for the comrades Olga Econimidou and Christos and Gerasimos Tsakalos to be allowed to return to the courtroom was also reviewed. The comrades had been indefinitely banned from the courtroom at the previous hearing after they abused the judge and threw objects at him. The judge denied the request and the comrades were unable to enter the room.
After all of the above, the CCF comrades Panagiotis Argyrou, Michalis Nikolopoulos and Giorgos Nikolopoulos spat at the judge and threw a book at his head and were then removed from the courtroom by riot police. The prisoner Fabio Dusko, accused of helping with the escape attempt, also left the courtroom in solidarity with the CCF comrades.
Those attending the hearing in solidarity with the comrades booed and shouted slogans such as “the passion for freedom is stronger than all cages” were also evicted from the courtroom by order of the judge and faced off with the police in the corridors outside.
The judge decided to continue the trial behind closed doors, without the presence of the accused and without the presence of comrades in solidarity, as he wished from the outset so he could judge the accused and their families without any obstacles.
A new hearing was set for Friday, May 27th, in which the presence of comrades in solidarity was permitted, all controlled by the police, but at least it is possible to break the cloak of isolation that the judge is trying to impose on the process.
The trial continues on Tuesday May 31st, where five ‘witnesses’ will declare, all of them are police officers.
Against the power and their vengeance towards comrades who continue to struggle in the prisons…extend the solidarity offensive with insurrectionary action!
(via Sin Banderas Ni Fronteras, Athens Indymedia and Mpalothia)
