Greek police arrest leader of terrorist group

ATHENS, Greece -- In a major breakthrough against the elusive November 17 terror group, Greek police announced Thursday they captured a leader of the radical leftist organization and had confessions from three other members to bombings and shootings, including the assassinations of American and a British military attaches.

In all, said police chief Fotis Nassiakos, seven alleged group members were in custody -- the first arrests of November 17 members since the group emerged 27 years ago with the assassination of Richard Welch, the CIA's station chief in Athens.

Since then November 17 has claimed responsibility for 22 other killings -- including four American officials, two Turkish diplomats and Greek businessmen and politicians -- and dozens of bomb and rocket attacks. Its last victim was British defense attache, Brig. Stephen Saunders, shot dead in June 2000.

Police penetrated the group as Greece came under increasing international pressure to improve security ahead of the 2004 Olympics. The governing Socialists have for years faced international criticism for failing to crack down on domestic terrorism. But authorities did not spell out how the group operated with impunity for more than a quarter-century.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declined to say if the United States would seek to extradite any of the suspects, but praised Greek efforts against the group.

Nassiakos told a nationally televised news conference that three of the suspects were brothers -- sons of a Greek Orthodox priest -- who served November 17 as executioners.

"This will clear a cloud that has been hanging over Greece. ... This is a very great success for Greece and the government," said deputy foreign minister Yannis Magriotis.

An American Olympics security expert praised Greece for cracking the case.

"I think Greece's efforts are outstanding in...dealing with a problem that has been around for a long time," said David Tubbs, who headed security at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

November 17, which police estimate has fewer than a dozen members, was believed to have targeted Americans and their allies because of Washington's backing of the Greek military dictatorship, which ruled from 1967 to 1974.

After the fall of the junta, left-wing and anti-American sentiment remained strong throughout the country and defined a generation of politicians, many of whom participated in the Nov. 17, 1973, student uprising from which the group took its name. The student opposition evolved, in part, into the Socialist Party that has governed Greece for 18 of the past 21 years.

Former U.S. government officials have alleged some Socialist party officials may have sheltered the group because of old student and radical ties.

November 17 has been on the State Department's terrorism list since the 1980s. In its report to Congress last month, the State Department said Greece's failure to arrest November 17 members was "troubling."

Also known as Europe's last red terrorists, November 17 had a reputation for longevity in a terrorist underworld that saw the breakup of far deadlier contemporaries such as Germany's Baader-Meinhoff and Italy's Red Brigades.

In the end it was not the $9 million reward, but a lucky break that led police into the heart of the group. Savas Xiros, a 40-year-old religious icon painter and one of the priest's sons, was severely injured June 29 when a bomb he was allegedly carrying exploded. He remains hospitalized under heavy guard.

His capture and the release of his picture produced clues that led police to raid two November 17 hide-outs, where police found the group's weaponry. Authorities also have identified one of the handguns found in the raids as the weapon used to kill seven November 17 victims.

In one hide-out, police also found the fingerprints of Alexandros Giotopoulos, the 58-year-old alleged chief theorist for the group. He was picked up on a hydrofoil Wednesday as he prepared to leave the Aegean Island of Lipsi, where he had a vacation home.

While in the hospital, Savas Xiros was visited by several of his 10 siblings. Two brothers were later arrested. Christodoulos Xiros, a 44-year-old musical instrument maker who often spoke before television cameras outside the hospital, was arrested at his brother's bedside.

The other, 30-year-old mechanic Vassilis Xiros, was snatched at the family home in the northern port of Thessaloniki along with the third suspect, high school friend Dionissis Georgiadis, 26.

Giotopoulos, the theoretician and a leader of the group, was living under the assumed name Michalis Economou. He was believed to have been active in the Paris-based student opposition to the Greek dictatorship. Police said the Paris-born Giotopoulos has homes in France and Greece and is married to a French woman, a teacher at Athens' French-Greek high school.

American, British and Greek authorities have for years suspected November 17 had a French connection, and that its leaders may have had ideological roots in the leftist movements that fueled France's May 1968 student revolt. November 17 took responsibility for Welch's killing in a letter delivered to a Paris newspaper.

Giotopoulos' father was Dimitris Giotopoulos, a 1930s communist theoretician and follower of Leon Trotsky, a founder along with Vladimir Lenin of the Soviet Union.

Police said Christodoulos Xiros confessed to and was charged with participating in attacks from 1984 to 1992 resulting in the murder of nine people, including two American military officials -- U.S. Embassy defense attache Capt. William Nordeen in June 1988 and Air Force Sgt. Ronald O. Stewart in March 1991.

He also confessed to bombing two buses carrying American servicemen in 1987 which left 23 people injured, as well to thefts of anti-tank rockets from a military base in 1989 and of bazookas from Athens' War Museum in 1990.

His brother Vassilis Xiros confessed to participating in the 1997 killing of Greek-British businessman Constantinos Peratikos, the June 2000 shooting death of British defense attache Brig. Stephen Saunders and a rocket attack on the home of the German ambassador in 1999 that did not cause injuries.

Dionissis Georgiadis confessed to a bomb attack and a robbery.

Police said they are holding two other November 17 suspects, Vassilis Tzortzatos and Theologos Psaradelis. They are also searching for Dimitris Koufodinas, a 44-year-old beekeeper who was believed living with Savas Xiros' former wife.