Greece Gives 2-Day Furlough to Terrorist Who Killed American and British Diplomats

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. and British governments expressed outrage Thursday at a decision by a Greek judicial council to allow a convicted left-wing terrorist serving 11 life sentences to take a two-day furlough – particularly as one of his comrades earlier absconded during a similar parole.

Dimitris Koufodinas of the notorious Marxist group Revolutionary Organization November 17 (N17) walked out the Korydallos Prison in the Athens port of Piraeus, expressing no remorse for crimes that include the murders of U.S. and British diplomats.

The Kathimerini daily quoted the terrorist’s lawyer, Ioanna Kourtovik, as saying his appeal for a two-day leave had been approved due to good behavior, but that his “philosophical and ideological beliefs” remained unchanged.

The paper also cited a government spokesman, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, as saying the law permitting such furloughs does not make expressing regret for crimes a prerequisite.

Koufodinas was sentenced to 11 life sentences in December 2003, at the end of a major trial in which 15 accused were convicted of crimes, including assassinations and car bombings over a period of almost three decades.

The terrorists threatened to kill Americans until U.S. military bases in Greece were closed. The victims include:

–CIA station chief in Athens, Richard Welch, shot dead in front of his home in Athens two days before Christmas, 1975;

–U.S. Navy Capt. George Tsantes, who was attached to the Joint U.S. Military Aid Group to Greece, shot dead in his car in November 1983, along with his Greek driver, Nikos Veloutsos;

–U.S. Navy Capt. William Nordeen, killed in a car bomb outside his Athens home in June 1988;

–U.S. Air Force Sgt. Ronald Stewart, who died of injuries sustained in bomb blast in March 1991; and

–British military attaché Stephen Saunders, shot dead in an ambush in June 2000.  MORE HERE