Golden Dawn leader detained for "criminal link"

(Vatican Radio) The leader of Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party, Nikos Michaloliakos, was formally jailed pending trial here in Athens today after prosecutors linked him to the murder of a leftwing hip-hop activist two weeks ago.

Listen to Vatican Radio's correspondent John Carr's report from Athens...


Michaloliakos joins two other Golden Dawn parliamentary deputies in pre-trial detention after half a dozen of them were arrested late last week. Three others were conditionally freed yesterday for lack of evidence.
The prosecutors cite evidence from wiretaps and monitored mobile phone conversations as indicating that Michaloliakos could have been an accomplice in the fatal stabbing. Greek media reports claim that the criminal dossier on Golden Dawn is a thick one.
Golden Dawn itself this week rejected allegations that it’s a neo-Nazi party with ties to crime. It said it’s an organization of patriotic and nationalist Greeks who are against the country’s subjugation to the IMF and European Union, and intend to fight it.
Earlier today the party’s number two, Christos Pappas, went before a prosecutor, as black tee-shirted supporters gathered waving black and red party flags and shouting slogans. The police had raided Pappas’s home in northwest Greece last week, finding German war helmets, various types of weapons and portraits of Adolf Hitler. Pappas and the other Golden Dawn members claim they’re being victimized on the orders of unnamed foreign power centres.
Polls suggest that Golden Dawn, despite its negative media image, is still Greece’s third biggest political party. Michaloliakos still retains his parliamentary seat along with eleven other Golden Dawn deputies. And street opinion here in Athens suggests that as the economic crisis goes on, Golden Dawn will not lack supporters.