A notorious Greek fugitive who absconded while serving a life sentence for acting as a hitman for an extreme left group was caught on Saturday as he rode a bicycle while armed with a pistol, police said.
Christodoulos Xiros was taken into custody in the southern city of Anavyssos almost a year after his disappearance on Jan. 7 last year while on prison leave.
He had been serving multiple life sentences for deadly attacks he participated in as a hitman for the Revolutionary Organization 17 November group, and had been on a nine-day New Year’s break when he disappeared.
Photo: EPA
Police caught him as he rode a bike in the neighborhood where the 56-year-old had been renting an apartment in recent months.
“He changed his physical appearance, wearing long hair, a goatee, glasses,” Greek Chief of Police Dimitrios Tsaknakis said. “He had a pistol on him, loaded with 14 bullets.”
Xiros, who did not resist arrest, was immediately handed to antiterrorism authorities. Before its breakup in 2002, 17 November was one of Greece’s most violent far-left organizations, claiming responsibility for 23 assassinations during its 27-year span, including the 1975 killing of US CIA Athens station chief Richard Welch.
Despite 17 November’s dissolution, Xiros allegedly remained militant and maintained close contacts with fellow jailed radicals.
Shortly after his escape, he appeared in an online video berating Greece’s government over the austerity policies it enacted at the behest of international creditors and threatened to “fire the guerrilla shotgun against those who stole our life and sold our dreams.”
Several months later, authorities found DNA on a parcel bomb sent to a police station in the city of Itea that matched traces lifted from the car Xiros used to go into hiding.
Authorities suspect Xiros began working with a group calling itself “Conspiracy of Cells of Fire,” which claimed responsibility for the parcel bomb — detonated by police — and expressed solidarity with the fugitive.
Greek Minister of Public Safety Vassilis Kikilias saluted the arrest of Xiros, whom he labeled a “terrorist.”
Xiros’ arrest marks a breakthrough for Greek law enforcement, but the nation still faces a threat from other like-minded, far-left militants prepared to carry out violent attacks.
Last month, gunmen raked the Israeli embassy in Athens with machine gun fire. A year earlier, the German ambassador’s residence was targeted in a similar attack.
No one was injured in either incident, which police suspected to be the work of left-wing extremists.
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