Post date: Mar 08, 2013 4:39:32 AM
Golden Dawn MP Elias Kasidiaris is acquitted of aiding and abetting a 2007 attack against a university student due to lack of evidence as party shrugs off accusations of hate speech as being part of a joke.
ATHENS, GREECE (MARCH 7 2013)(REUTERS) - The spokesman for Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party was cleared on Thursday (March 7) of involvement in an attack on a student in 2007, triggering chants and cheers from supporters outside the court room.
Elias Kasidiaris, whose party entered parliament for the first time in June riding a wave of public anger over austerity and immigration, taunted journalists after the ruling, saying they had reported false accusations against him."I said from the first moment that I was innocent and today the justice system said it, too. I rub this court's ruling in your faces, in the face of your media mogul bosses and in those of our pathetic political opponents who wished for me to be in jail and for Golden Dawn to be a fringe party. However we are here, we are powerful and in a short while we will be in power," said Kasidiaris as he left a courtroom packed with Golden Dawn supporters.
The party, whose members have been seen giving Nazi-style salutes and whose emblem resembles a swastika, has said it wants to rid Greece of all foreigners including what it calls the "stench" of immigrants.
Rights groups have accused its supporters of carrying out a wave of violent attacks on immigrants, a charge dismissed by the party which says it does not support neo-Nazi ideology or violence.
Earlier this week a prosecutor ordered an investigation into video footage in a documentary aired by Britain's Channel 4 television channel showing a purported Golden Dawn candidate saying immigrants would be turned into "soap", recalling the Nazi extermination of Jews during the Holocaust.
"I see the things that were said as a joke, and the man saying them did not, of course mean them, we can't be saying things like that, and those are not the views of the Golden Dawn. It's true that we don't want immigrants here but we will get rid of them in other, legal ways," said Golden Dawn deputy Yannis Lagos as he accompanied Kasidiaris from the courtroom.
In 2007, a gang robbed, beat and stabbed a student at an Athens universitycampus before fleeing in a car that the rental agency said was booked under Kasidiaris' name.
Kasidiaris, one of Golden Dawn's members of parliament, denied any wrongdoing and the court ruled there was no evidence to show he had been involved.
Parliament will discuss next week whether to lift the immunity from prosecution granted to Kasidiaris as an MP for a second time to let prosecutors look into an assault against a female politician during last year's election campaign.
Kasidiaris was filmed slapping a Communist party lawmaker in the face during a live television debate in June. He fled the studio and disappeared from public view until a warrant for his arrest expired two days late.