Golden Dawn Cop Candidate Probed

With the Greek government trying to dismantle the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party as May elections loom for municipalities and the European Parliament, authorities are now investigating whether a police office on Crete is going to run as a candidate. That report came a day after party leaders appeared on the island at a rally where one of its Members of Parliament, Michalis Arvanitis gave a Heil Hitler salute to followers, saying it was an ancient Greek gesture. Party officials deny any link to Nazism although included in more than 10,000 pages of evidence and digital documents are reports that Mein Kamp was a favorite text, Nazi methodology and ideology was used on recruits and Nazi memorabilia had been found. It had been reported previously that nearly half the police force voted for Golden Dawn when it won 6.97 percent of the vote in June, 2012 and gained 18 seats in Parliament and authorities said they would try to identify the sympathizers. An international investigation last year was also conducted to determine if the party had infiltrated the ranks of police and a number of top cops were removed from their posts. The police officer candidate, who was not named, addressed the party gathering at the port of Hersonissos, according to local reports. Televised footage from the event has been given to a prosecutor. The party is to run under the name National Dawn in the elections as nine of its MPs already face criminal charges and the remaining nine are to be charged with forming a criminal organization. Party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, one of the nine MPs already charged with membership of a criminal organization, was present at the Hersonissos event along with other MPs. In a related development, it emerged that the evidence collected by magistrates to support their request for the parliamentary immunity of the remaining nine GD MPs to be lifted contains testimony from a former party member who claims he was stabbed several times last year after quitting the group. Meanwhile, the Appellate court handling the Golden Dawn investigations has forwarded to Parliament media files that were recovered from the mobile phones of Golden Dawn suspects, to assist Parliament in decided whether the approve an immunity lift on the party’s MPs, To Vima said. One video was recovered from the mobile phone of Yannis Kazantzoglou, who has been detained for this involvement in the murder of anti-fascist hip-hop artist Pavlos Fyssas and for participating in a criminal organization. In the video the black-clad members of the local Golden Dawn offices in Nikea can be seen in the streets chanting violent and racist-fueled slogans against Albanians., urging their comrades to “sew clothes with their skins” and “paint our houses with their blood”.

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