The murder of a prominent investigative reporter on the doorstep of his home in Athens sent shockwaves through Greece on Monday night as it emerged that a terrorist group was behind the assassination.
Socratis Giolas died almost instantly as masked gunmen shot him 16 times in front of his wife, who is expecting their second child.
She said her husband had been lured to the front door by an anonymous telephone call.
After spraying him with bullets the assailants sped off in a stolen car that was later found burned.
The 37-year-old radio chief is the first journalist to be killed in the country since newspaper publisher Nikos Monferatos was gunned down by the infamous 17 November terror group in 1985.
Giolas, who was also a frequent blogger, posting reports on popular online newsblog Troktiko, sought to illuminate Greece’s seamier underside.
The shooting came days before he was due to release an investigative series on corruption, colleagues said.
“His cowardly murder is the work of people who wanted to silence a very good investigative reporter,” said Panos Sobolos, head of the Athens journalists’ union.
Forensic tests on bullet casings found at the scene matched them to two 9mm pistols used in previous assaults on policemen and a television channel by a domestic terror group called the Sect of Revolutionaries.
The group, one of three operating guerilla networks whose members have never been caught, surfaced in December 2008 when Greece descended into violence following the police shooting of a teenage boy.
Since then, the country’s political climate has become increasingly febrile, as far-left groups protesting against global capitalism and local corruption have staged attacks against law enforcement, public buildings and banks.
Last year, after targeting the Athens premises of the Alter TV station, the Sect of Revolutionaries vowed to step up attacks on well-known journalists and media outlets, accusing both of helping corrupt business interests mislead public opinion.
The assassination comes less than a month after unknown terrorists attempted to kill Greek Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrysohoidis, the minister in charge of police, by sending a parcel bomb to his office in the center of Athens.
Wrapped up as a gift, the explosive device detonated in the hands of the politician’s security chief, killing him.
“He had been getting them from different people for the last 15 years,” Giolas’ lawyer Giorgos Marangakis said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS