On September 17th, 2010, four people robbed a branch of National Bank of Greece at gunpoint in the town of Psachna on Evia Island (north of Athens). A half hour later, on a motorway road in Panorama area near the island’s capital Chalkida a 27-year-old man, a 28-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman were arrested. When they were brought to Chalkida police station, the men — Alexandros Kossyvas and Michalis Traikapis — were charged with the armed bank robbery, and Maria Economou was charged with ‘aiding and abetting fugitives.’ The charges were based largely on the comrades’ connection to the anarchist milieu (M.Traikapis was one of the ‘Thessaloniki 7’, arrested at the anti-EU summit demo of 2003 and finally released after a lengthy hunger strike).
The three comrades didn’t have any weapons or ‘loot’ on them at the time of the arrests while searches of their Athens homes revealed nothing more than ‘ski masks, four 9 mm bullets, and other objects that are being investigated.’ Thus, lacking any incriminating evidence, the authorities based their accusations on unsubstantiated, contradictory testimonies given by residents which refer to a similarity in the appearance of the defendants to the perpetrators (one of the locals, a kiosk attendant, supposedly remembered one of the comrades — just prior to the robbery — asking: ‘Excuse me. Where is the bank?’).
All three deny the accusations, and are known to the authorities due to their active participation in social struggles since years; this was sufficient for A.Kossyvas and M.Traikapis to be held under pre-trial detention while M.Economou was released on bail, awaiting trial.
Just two months before this trial regarding the case of the National Bank robbery in Psachna, Evia, the two comrades M.Economou and A.Kossyvas were informed that they are being charged with one more case: a National Bank robbery in Schimatari, Viotia. On August 18th, 2011, M.Economou and A.Kossyvas (he is still held under pretrial detention) appeared before the inquisitor of Thebes who imposed further restrictive bail conditions to both of them concerning the new fabricated accusations.
Text by the political prisoner A.Kossyvas concerning
further prosecution against him
August 12th, 2011
Experiencing a pre-trial detention for eleven months now — which is inconsistent even in the ‘reasonable’ framework of the bourgeois justice — and with the trial set for October 18th, 2011, based on a flimsy indictment ready to collapse, the police authorities amid summer indolence presented a sworn statement report by a false witness–neocollaborationist which is dated 24/9-2010 (the exact day that comrade Michalis Traikapis and I traversed the threshold of Koridallos judicial prisons accused of robbing the National Bank of Greece in Psachna, Evia, on 17/9-2010) and indicates me as a suspect for the robbery of the National Bank in Schimatari, Viotia, on Monday, March 29th, 2010 (before Easter).
Following of course ex officio prosecution, the inquisitor of Thebes sent summon which incidentally was not delivered in Koridallos prisons where I’m temporarily detained but was discovered accidentally by a neighbour at my former residence address. I had to appear before him at the district court of Thebes in order to receive time limit, to discover stunned that my co-defendant also in this case is Maria Economou: although her permanent residence is known, and she appears monthly in her region’s police station bound by restrictive bail conditions, she neither received, nor of course was sent a summon from the police —that in last period conceals summons with the intention of creating confusion, false impressions and issuing arrest warrants.
The timing is no coincidence; neither the fact that the false testimony which connects us to the robbery was kept in the State Security’s drawers for almost one year, nor that it was drafted by the very same cops who set up the story of Psachna last September, following the proven recipe of contradictory witnesses who declare whatever secret police agents dictate.
It is irrelevant whether the evidence which associate us also with the robbery in Schimatari are fabricated, and the second testimony of the local collaborator of the police on 24/9-2010 is diametrically opposite than the first one, on 30/3-2010, and grossly false and hilarious. The command is given.
Our new prosecution is the policy planning–political decision of a social-fascist government and the upper echelons of the ministries of Citizen Protection and Justice, as well as of the Police Headquarters. It is a planning by a state apparatus that has gone on blatant offensive and repression.
Such a persecution is among dozens of others against struggling people, anarchists and imprisoned fighters. It is part of the special courts-martial that were and are due to be held, part of crushing sentences that these courts impose. Their aim is political and social annihilation. So let’s counterattack.
Solidarity with political prisoners means the intensification of dissidents’ radical struggle.
FREEDOM TO US ALL
Friendly and comradely,
Alexandros Kossyvas
Koridallos prisons, 1st wing
Text by M.Economou concerning the new summons
August 13th, 2011
Text by six political prisoners concerning the prosecution
of the comrades M.Economou and A.Kossyvas
August 16th, 2011
‘[. . .] We will not be focused on the cops that “exaggerated,” the public prosecutors that “arbitrated,” the journalists that “misinformed.” What we seek is through our own story to describe the modern terms of submission. To expose to common view these small stories that compose the total of barbarian world that surrounds us. Each one of us should take a position on them. We took ours. We demand the lifting of the charges and our immediate release, without begging for nothing. We are not victims; we are a part of our choices. For all that we did, for what we didn’t do, for other things that we left. No one should look for “innocents” among us. We are on the side of the repeatedly “guilty.” We are next to the poor devils, the immigrants, the outlaws, the robbers, the “terrorists.” And we will remain here; for before, now and ever.’
Alexandros Kossyvas, Michalis Traikapis, Maria Economou —October, 19th, 2010
No Comments “It’s no news that the Greek State prosecutes ‘perpetrators’ of militant social struggles on fabricated evidence”
http://athens.indymedia.org/front.php3?lang=el&article_id=1401793
May 22nd, 2012: After a judicial decree, comrades Maria Economou and Alexandros Kossyvas were also acquitted in the case of Schimatari that was originally based on a false testimony by a perjurer.