Police refute reports of Jihadi training

Greece is not a training ground for Jihadis, the Greek police said in a statement released late on Friday in response to reports in the local media claiming that radical Islamists have been recruiting and instructing new members on Greek soil.

However the police statement noted that an investigation was carried out on a company based in Markopoulo, eastern Attica, following earlier reports that the firm had been training Greeks and foreign nationals as pilots and aircraft engineers.

The firm’s license to operate was revoked in July this year following the discovery of “serious irregularities” in the examinations it offered, the police statement said.

“The investigation did not produce evidence or indications of the training of Jihadis nor of their participation in the aforementioned examinations,” it added.

Meanwhile a report by Kathimerini, based on secret interviews with witnesses, identified two suspected Jihadis alleged to have spent time in the country, one who stayed in Greece on his way to Western Europe and another who left Greece for Iraq, from where he reportedly tried to recruit Greece-based Muslims.