Against a backdrop of protests outside parliament by supporters, the imprisoned-pending-trial Golden Dawn MPs Nikos Michaloliakos, Christos Pappas and Giannis Lagos spoke before the plenary prior to the vote to their parliamentary immunity in light of the criminal charges against them. The Golden Dawn officials face charges including establishing and running a criminal organisation, weapons charges and ordering violent and murderous attacks by the party’s paramilitary ‘attack squads’.
Following the speeches of the 224 MPs participating 223 voted in favour of lifting immunity of the three Golden Dawn MPs with one ‘present’ vote. The MPs of Golden Dawn and the Independent Greeks abstained from the vote, deeming that the required three month period for the vote had lapsed.
In a characteristically furious and shrill speech, Michaloliakos laid into MPs of other parties beginning his speech yelling ‘shame on you’ repeatedly. When the presiding Christos Markogiannakis attempted to intervene, Michaloliakos snapped ‘shut up, you!’ Earlier on entering the chamber Michaloliakos could be heard shouting ‘Don’t touch me! I am the party leader!’
During his speech he denounced his impending prosecution as politically motivated claiming that the evidence against him had been fabricated. “You led with handcuffs to jail the leader of the third party” he said addressing parliament. Referring to the recent European elections he thanked “the 400,000 Greeks who stood up to the junta of Samaras and Venizelos that imprisons parliamentarians. In Greece and Sudan they imprison MPs.”
He also referred to Takis Baltakos – the former general secretary of the government who was forced to resign after a secret recording emerged of him speaking with spokesperson Ilias Kasidiaris about the case against Golden Dawn.
About Baltakos he said that he had known him since the period following the end of Greece’s military dictatorship in 1973 when Baltakos was a member of the nationalist movement (and implying that Baltakos was pro-junta). “Whenever he wanted to tell me something he would tell me to come out on the balcony because he was afraid of bugs and cameras.”
Michaloliakos also alleged that the former press secretary for the Prime Minister’s office and close aide to Antonis Samaras, Giorgos Mouroutis also ‘wanted contacts’ with the Golden Dawn leader, saying that he had his contact details in his cell-phone that had been confiscated “You will find also Mouroutis’s phone number. He also wanted contacts,” Michaloliakos said. Giorgos Mouroutis has since categorically denied having any contact with members of Golden Dawn.
He also claimed to have regular contacts with ‘two ministers’ without naming them.
Makis Voridis – the New Democracy parliamentary representative who began his political career with the far right – also came under fire from Michaloliakos who reminded the parliament of his nationalist past and tried to draw a parallel between the Golden Dawn case and past instances where violence was perpetrated by members of other parties without the leadership being held culpable.
“A crime which is unknown to you happened in 1985 during a pre-election period. A member of the youth of EPEN kills a fellow villager outside of Sparta. I don’t want to say his name. He was tried, imprisoned and freed. But leader of EPEN then was Makis Voridis. Aren’t there responsibilities there?”
Following Michaloliakos’s rant, Giannis Lagos spoke who was equally combative using his time to issue a number of threats.
“If you have the guts take us to trial. We will humiliate you Europe-wide for two months,” adding that ‘Golden Dawn will never die.”
“You are in real trouble with us. We are not like you… you treat us like the worst criminals while the worst are in here… You rushed to kick us out assuming that our supporters would be frightened and we would break up. I pity you.”
“You were humiliated in the European elections. 9.5% spit in your faces. Where is your evidence? Everybody should hear this. There will be no trial. The evidence is phony and based on hate. You didn’t even set it up seriously.”
Over his involvement in the murder of Pavlos Fyssas for which he faces charges Lagos said that that was only because he was the regional head of Golden Dawn and an MP. “We want to prove who is to blame but some are doing whatever they can that the truth is never learnt.”
Christos Pappas for his part was also provocative saying, ‘I hope for you, the pathetic of Parliament, for God to have mercy on you,” provoking angry reactions from parliamentarians.
Pappas went on to maintain than there are many like Baltakos in New Democracy. He said that New Democracy MP and culture minister Panos Panagiotopoulos had spoken highly of the Golden Dawn MP saying ‘we should take him with us.’ He also alleged that Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis had told him that he would prefer for his 16 year old son to be a Golden Dawn follower over a SYRIZA supporter. Pappas also claimed that Makis Voridis’s long-time right hand man had participated in a ‘Nazi event’ in 2009.
Pappas added that while New Democracy MPs were implicated in a number of financial scandals they were free while the leader, parliamentary spokesperson and MPs of the third largest party in parliament were imprisoned.