Neo-Nazism

Two former lawmakers of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn denied on Thursday that they or the party had any links to Nazism or hate speech.
The two men, Artemis Matthaiopoulos and Dimitris Koukoutsis, testified in the ongoing trial of Golden Dawn's party leaders, who are accused of running a criminal organization.

Ilias Kasidiaris, a prominent former MP and spokesman of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, testified on Wednesday in the ongoing trial into GD leaders on suspicion of forming a criminal organization.
Describing the charges against him and the party leadership as "fabricated" and "politically motivated," Kasidiaris said he would not apologize for his and the party's ideology.

A neo-Nazi who killed two people in eastern Germany on Oct. 9originally planned to storm a mosque, according to a manifesto apparently written by him and posted online.

The trial of neo-Nazi Golden Dawn continued on Wednesday with testimony by Eleni Zaroulia, the wife of party leader Nikos Michaloliakos, contradicting claims by a defense witness regarding developments on the night after leftist rapper Pavlos Fyssas was killed by a member of GD in September 2013.

The first of some 18 former lawmakers belonging to the extreme-right Golden Dawn party to take the stand in the final phase of a trial which began in 2015 claimed on Wednesday that he is not a neo-Nazi but a Greek nationalist who despises Germans.

Some 18 former lawmakers of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party are set to take the stand on Tuesday in what is the final phase of the trial which began in 2015 and is now entering the final straight.

Their testimonies will be the last after almost 400 days of hearings, during which hardly any of them appeared in court.

Six years after musician and rapper Pavlos Fyssas was murdered by a self-professed member of Golden Dawn and over four years after the trial into the neo-Nazi party got under way, the time is nearing for its 18 former lawmakers to take the stand.

An anti-fascist rally marking six years since the killing of a leftist musician by a member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn got underway in the district of Keratsini on Wednesday, headed by the victim's mother, Magda Fyssa.

The march will end at the offices of Golden Dawn in Piraeus.

Moving trucks and crews were spotted on Saturday removing boxes and furniture out of the headquarters of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party on Mesogeion Avenue, north of central Athens.

According to a post by a user on Twitter, the operation included the removal of the party's sign from the office building's facade.

Golden Dawn European Parliament Member Yiannis Lagos and former MP Nikos Michos were found guilty on Friday over a July 2013 attack on a community center in the eastern Athens suburb of Ilioupoli.