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| Europe |
| Greeks nab another November 17th crazed killer... |
| 2002-07-26 |
| Greek police continued penetrating the inner circle of the deadly November 17 terror group Friday, arresting a man who allegedly helped mastermind a 27-year campaign of violence while running a ceramics shop in central Athens. The suspect, identified by Greek media as Nikos Papanastasiou, 50, is believed to have helped create the group that emerged in 1975 with the ambush slaying of the CIA station chief in Athens, Richard Welch. "Hey, Nikos! Whaddya wanna do tonight?" "I dunno, Alexandros. Whaddya you wanna do?" "Howzabout we get all our relatives together and kill everybody we don't like?" "Hokay." Another alleged founder - 58-year-old Alexandros Giotopoulos - already is in custody and accused by one suspect of pulling the trigger on the CIA's Richard Welch outside a Christmas party. Giotopoulos denies any connection to the terrorist organization. "Nope. Nope. Wudn't me." November 17 is linked to 23 slayings, including Welch and three other Americans. Its most recent victim was British defense attache Brig. Stephen Saunders in June 2000. On Friday, a hospital telephone operator accused of being November 17's second-in-command admitted being a lookout during Welch's killing and said the triggerman was Giotopoulos, judicial sources said Friday. The surprise, late-night confession by Pavlos Serifis, 46, added important details about the ambush killing that launched a 27-year string of assassinations, bombings and robberies by the once-untouchable group. Serifis also said he was a lookout during the 1980 slayings of two Greek policemen and said Giotopoulos was one of the two assassins, judicial sources said on condition of anonymity. Serifis, who worked at an Athens children's hospital, at first denied any link to November 17 after his arrest Wednesday in the northern city of Karditsa. "Nope. Not me..." But late Thursday, he began detailing his involvement in Welch's killing in a confession ending just before dawn Friday, the judicial sources said. "I confess! I dunnit! I dunnit and I'm glad! Glad, y'hear me! Bwaaahahahahaha!" |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |