Posts Tagged ‘Korydallos Prison’
Open letter of Pola Roupa about the attempt to break Nikos Maziotis out of Koridallos prison (Greece)
Monday, March 14th, 2016
via contrainfo:
Below is the first part of the comrade’s long letter; originally published in Greek on Athens IMC (March 8th 2016).
Under other circumstances, this text would be written by Revolutionary Struggle. However, the outcome of the attempt to break out the comrade Nikos Maziotis of Koridallos prison obliges me to speak personally.
On February 21st [2016], I attempted to break out Revolutionary Struggle member Nikos Maziotis by helicopter. The operation was planned so that other political prisoners could join us, who wished to make their way to freedom. Details of the plan, how I managed to evade the security measures and board the helicopter armed, have no special significance and I will not refer to them; despite the fact that there has been a lot of misinformation. Just for the sake of clarity, I will only mention that the plan was not based on any previous helicopter prison escape, it is not associated with any findings of plans not yet implemented, and I do not have any relation to another fugitive person despite media portrayals to the contrary. Also, this attempt was not preceded by any escape plan that “was wrecked”, as reported by some media.
A quarter of the journey after our takeoff from Thermisia in Argolida, I took out my gun and I asked the pilot to change course. Of course, he did not understand who I am, but he realised it was an attempted prison break. He panicked. He attacked me pulling out a gun – a fact he “omitted”. Also because they will likely try to refute the fact he was armed, I remind everyone that there are publicly available reports about the discovery of two mags in the helicopter. One was mine, but the second wasn’t mine. The second mag was from his own gun, which he dropped from his hands during our scuffle during flight. And as for me, of course I had a second mag. Would I go to such an operation with only one mag?
He lost control of the helicopter and shouted in panic “we will get killed”. The description that was presented of a helicopter substantially unmanageable is true. But these images did not result from my actions, but his. The helicopter was losing altitude and swirled in the air. We flew a few meters over electricity wires. I screamed to him to pull up the helicopter, to do what I tell him so no one will get hurt.
Within no time at all, we were on the ground. Those who speak of a dispassionate reaction of the pilot, apparently judging from the result, don’t know what they are talking about.
Instead of doing what I told him to do, he preferred to risk crashing with me in a collision of the helicopter, which didn’t happen by chance. It goes without saying that upon entering the helicopter and trying to gain control of it, to direct it to the prisons, I had made my decision. If he refused to do what I told him, I would naturally react. Those who claim I was responsible for the uncontrolled descent of the helicopter, from 5,000 feet to the ground, what did they expect? That I would have said “if you don’t want to come to the prisons, never mind”? I fired my gun and we engaged – both armed – in a scuffle during flight.
He preferred to risk crashing with me on the mountain than to obey. When we finally landed on the ground with speed, even though I knew the operation was lost, I had every opportunity to execute him. I consciously decided not to do so. Although I knew that with this decision I was endangering my life or freedom, I did not execute him even though I had the chance. He himself knows this very well. The only factor that held me back was my political conscience. And I took this decision, risking my own life and possibility to get away.
Regarding the prison escape operation itself, it’s obvious that all possible safety measures were taken in order to safeguard the undertaking against the armed guards patrolling the prison perimeter, and I even carried a bulletproof vest for the pilot as well. In this case, the purpose was to make the prison break happen in a way that would ensure the lowest possible risk for the helicopter, the comrades and, of course, the pilot. I acted with the same thought when we landed on the ground; despite the fact that the operation failed because of the pilot; despite the fact that he was armed. I essentially put his life over my own life and safety. But I am to reconsider this specific choice.
Organising to break out Nikos Maziotis was a political decision, as much as it was a political decision to liberate other political prisoners as well. It was not a personal choice. If I wanted to only liberate my comrade Nikos Maziotis, I wouldn’t have chartered a large helicopter – a fact that made the operation’s organising more complex. The aim of the operation was the liberation of other political prisoners as well; those who actually wanted, together with us, to make their way to freedom.
This action, therefore, despite its personal dimensions that are known, was not a personal choice but a political one. It was a step in the path to Revolution. The same goes for every action I have carried out and for every action I will make in the future. These are links in a chain of revolutionary planning aimed to create more favourable political and social conditions, for broadening and strengthening revolutionary struggle. Below I will refer to the political basis of this choice; but first I have to talk about facts, and the way I have operated until now in regard to some of these facts.
As I previously mentioned, every action I carry out concerns an act related to political planning. In the same context, I expropriated a branch of Piraeus Bank on the premises of Sotiria Hospital in Athens last June [2015]. With this money, in addition to my survival in “clandestinity”, I secured the organising of my action and financing of the operation for the liberation of Nikos Maziotis and other political prisoners from Koridallos women’s prisons. The reason I refer to this expropriation (I couldn’t care less about the penal consequences of this admittance) is because, at this time, I consider it absolutely necessary to disclose how I operate in regard to the safety of civilians, who in certain circumstances happen to be present in revolutionary actions I am involved in, and my perspective about this issue on the occasion – always mutatis mutandis – of the prison escape attempt.
In the case of the expropriation of Piraeus Bank branch, what I mentioned to the bank clerks when we walked into the bank was that they should not press the alarm button, because this would endanger their own safety, since I wasn’t willing to leave the bank without the money. I did not threaten them, nor would they ever be in danger because of me. They would only be in danger because of the police, if cops arrived at the spot and we subsequently had an armed clash. And the police would only arrive if any clerks pressed the bank alarm. This was a development which they themselves wanted to avoid. Because people who happen to be present in every such action are not afraid of those trying to expropriate, but instead the police intervening. Besides, it’s really stupid for anyone to attempt to defend money belonging to bankers. And for the record, when a female clerk told me “we ourselves are also poor people,” I suggested to her that we step over to a “blind” spot, where cameras can’t see us, to let her have 5,000 euros, which she did not accept, apparently out of fear. If she had accepted the money, she can be sure I would not speak publicly about it. And one detail: what I was holding was a medical apron to conceal my gun while waiting outside the bank; it was not a towel(!), as mentioned several times.
In every period of time, in the struggle for Revolution – as is also the case in all wars – at times the revolutionaries are obliged to seek the assistance of civilians in their fight. The historical examples are too many – an attempt to document them would fill an entire book, and this isn’t the time to expand on the matter – both in Greece and in armed movements and organisations in other countries. In such cases, however, we essentially ask them to take sides in a war. Once someone refuses to assist, their stance is not just about the particular practice, but an overall hostile stance against the struggle. They endanger or cancel undertakings, they put the lives of fighters in danger, they throw obstacles in the way of a revolutionary process. They take a position against a social and class war.
Neither at Piraeus Bank branch nor during the attempted helicopter escape did I make my identity known. Therefore, no one involved in these cases knew that those were political actions. But after the failed escape attempt, and given that – as I already mentioned – I had the opportunity to kill the pilot but I didn’t, risking my own life, I have to make the following public: from now on, whenever I need the assistance of civilians again, and if I deem it necessary, I will make my identity known from the outset. Since my mission in any case concerns the promotion of the struggle for overthrowing the criminal establishment, let everyone know that any possible refusal of cooperating and effort of obstructing the action will be treated accordingly.
I am, of course, aware of the personal details of the pilot, but I did not threaten his family. I would never threaten families and children.
This is my balance sheet after the escape attempt, one I must make public.
THE PRISON ESCAPE OPERATION WAS A REVOLUTIONARY CHOICE
[…]
I ATTEMPTED THE PRISON ESCAPE FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION
ALL MY LIFE I STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION
I WILL CONTINUE TO STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION
Pola Roupa
member of Revolutionary Struggle
Tags: Greece, Korydallos Prison, Letter, Nikos Maziotis, Pola Roupa, Revolutionary Struggle
Posted in Prison Struggle
CCF Escape Case: Evi Statiri and Athena Tsakalou are not allowed to attend their own trial (Greece)
Friday, March 4th, 2016
Regarding the trial for the escape plan from Korydallos prison against the members of the C.C.F. something truly incomprehensible is unfolding…
Two of the defendants, Athena Tsakalou and Evi Statiri cannot be present at court during the trial because of certain restrictions as part of their conditional release from pre-trial detention.
During the three times the court convened so far, the same thing happened: the judge calls their names to register their attendance and every time the exact same dialogue follows. The defence attorneys have to explain that both women are under conditional release and if restrictions are violated they will be re-arrested. These restrictions are in the form of house arrest for Athena Tsakalou who lives on Salamina island, while Evi Statiri is not allowed to cross the 1km radius from her residence. (more…)
Tags: Athena Tsakalou, Athens, CCF Escape case, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Evi Statiri, Greece, Korydallos Prison, SY.RIZ.A., Trial
Posted in Prison Struggle
Athens: Prison sentences in the 2nd trial against Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)
Thursday, March 3rd, 2016
UPDATE: Post-sentencing statement of Nikos Maziotis.
On March 3rd 2016, the Koridallos prison court sentenced all co-accused in the second trial against Revolutionary Struggle with regard to the attack with a car bomb containing 75kg of explosives against the Bank of Greece’s Supervision Directorate in central Athens on April 10th 2014; the shootout in Monastiraki on July 16th 2014 (when comrade Nikos Maziotis was injured and recaptured by police); and expropriations of bank branches.
Revolutionary Struggle member Nikos Maziotis was sentenced to life in prison plus 129 years and a fine of 20,000 euros.
Revolutionary Struggle (fugitive) member Pola Roupa was sentenced to 11 years in prison on misdemeanor charges (if arrested, she will stand trial on felony charges, too).
Antonis Stamboulos was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Giorgos Petrakakos was sentenced to 36 years in prison plus a fine of 9,000 euros.
-via contrainfo.
Tags: Antonis Stamboulos, Athens, Giorgos Petrakakos, Greece, Korydallos Prison, Nikos Maziotis, Pola Roupa, Revolutionary Struggle, Trial
Posted in Prison Struggle
CCF Escape Case: “The perpetual move towards freedom…” by Christos Tsakalos of the CCF / FAI-FRI (Greece)
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016
“It’s like playing a game with marked cards… You know that the odds are against you, but you keep playing… What for… but in order to continue the game… And to find others in the future to win the game… This is our heritage… ”
On February 15 the trial for the escape plan of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire began. A total of 28 people are being tried, including our relatives and other people who have no connection to the case.
As Conspiracy of Cells of Fire we have taken on the responsibility for the plan and its practical/technical preparation (weapons, explosives, rockets, stolen vehicles) found in the hideouts of the organization.
But the answer to what led us to the decision to escape, the judges and cops won’t find it neither in the weapons nor in the explosives or the decrypted messages found.
Anyone can find the answer as long as he listens to the rattling of the chains worn on him, chains baptized as freedom. A “freedom” which exchanged our life with cables, devices and screens… a “freedom” wearing the mask of a happy slave… But there is nothing real behind the mask…
Life is being strangled by the blackmail of the financial tyranny, the underpaid sweat of labor dungeons, the batons, tear gas and bullets of repression…
Meanwhile, the skies are raining death with bombs that turn entire countries into mass graves, small children washed up dead on the shores of the Aegean and thousands of people deserted in concentration camps…
At the same time, the lie is turned to truth from the journalist’s propaganda, technology controls our moments and emotions, the spectacle flashily dresses our loneliness, and the Western man becomes victimizer and victim of his amnesia, as he forgot what it means to live free. This is the answer to not only why someone should escape from prison, but also to become a fugitive from the legal life of an obedient being…
These thoughts are the abettor of our getaway. If we could, we would dig the walls even with our own nails to escape and to dig up the arms for the cause of freedom and revolution. And no matter how many of those attempts fail, or how many heads break onto the prison bars, at the end the bars will bend.
Because the stocks cannot be counted neither with weapons nor with explosives but with the belief that this world must be demolished, to let freedom blossom.
Both the judges and cops know us to be stubborn… That’s why they chose to take our relatives as hostages. To blackmail us emotionally and wrest our silence. But there will never be a cease fire between us and power…
The judicial authorities in 10,000 pages of files, try to make their lie a more convincing lie and call 20 witnesses (half of them executives of the anti-terrorist service) to confirm this. They accuse my mother, Evi (wife of my brother) and Christos (brother of the comrade C. Polydoros) as members of “the terrorist organization CCF”.
Their conviction has already been ordered from the palaces of power. This is a sample of the arrogance of a power that believes it’s playing without an opponent.
This trial is a poll of the struggle… In short, we must violently interrupt the onslaught of an iron repression, which, since it can not make us kneel, aims at our people.
But the challenge is not only to subvert the judicial coup that blackmails us through the persecution of our relatives, but also to transfer the fear to the homes of the enemy. Where they think they are invulnerable. And if the tracks of repression marching are already reverberating… it’s time for our own weapons to be heard.
“One day we will have to gamble for everything”, against all our yesterdays of postponement, without hesitation to stand abreast our executioners… it’s us or them…
Absence deletes people.. but there are those who are missing in exile or confined in one kilometer of “Freedom” and are present in our hearts… People just like Athena, Evi and finally Christos, because today to remain human is by itself an act of courage..
Our day will come…
Christos Tsakalos – Member of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire / F.A.I.
- Translated by A-politiko.
Tags: Athens, CCF Escape case, Christos Tsakalos, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire : Imprisoned Members Cell, Greece, Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI), International Revolutionary Front, Korydallos Prison, Letter
Posted in Prison Struggle
Letter in solidarity with the struggle of hunger striker Fabio Dusco (Greece)
Thursday, February 25th, 2016
Since Monday the 15th of February prisoner Fabio Dusco began a hungerstrike against the special conditions of detention that have been imposed upon him by the police and the Ministry of Justice.
Specifically, Fabio, who faces charges for the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire plan to escape from prison, was initially taken to Korydallos prison. In the early morning hours of the following day, riot police made a sudden intrusion into his cell and took him to the Attica Removal Centre. After the first day of the trial he was incarcerated at the Attica General Police Directorate.
This demonstrates that special conditions of detention introduced with the emergence of Type C prisons not only have not been abolished, but still operate covertly.
At the same time, the judicial dictators continue with their monologue, since, apart from Fabio, who is detained in isolation and has already begun a hunger strike, Athena Tsakalou and Evi Statiri cannot attend the trial as a consequence of the fascist restrictive conditions of their release which are still not lifted. Athena is exiled on Salamina island and Evi is not allowed to move further than a 1 km radius away from her residence.
POWER TO HUNGER STRIKER FABIO DUSCO
ABOLISH SPECIAL CONDITIONS OF DETENTION
LIFT RESTRICTIVE CONDITIONS OF RELEASE FOR ATHENA TSAKALOU AND EVI STATIRI
Initiative of political prisoners detained in the underground ward of Korydallos Prison
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via insurrection news
Tags: Athens, CCF Escape case, Fabio Dusco, Greece, Korydallos Prison, Type C prisons
Posted in Prison Struggle
Police allege helicopter escape attempt by revolutionary comrades held hostage in Korydallos Prison, implicate comrade in clandestinity Pola Roupa of Revolutionary Struggle (Greece)
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016
Over the last days an anti-terrorist media spectacle is unfolding in Greece. Police released a statement about an incident of attempted helicopter hijack on 21 February; a woman using a fake ID card and apparently with the description of Pola Roupa, clandestine member of R.O. – Revolutionary Struggle attempted to hijack a helicopter departing from Thebes with a pistol. The woman had booked a flight to pick up 5 people at a pre-arranged route, but caused the pilot at gunpoint to change direction towards Attica. At one point, the pilot fought back, being an ex-policeman, who claimed to have recognised Roupa through media photographs. He tried to take the pistol, leading to a struggle which ended in the helicopter being brought down with two bullet holes in the windshield and one in the instrument panel. The woman then escaped and so far has not been captured. Police recovered a pistol mag, headphones and a wig which were sent for forensic analysis. The police believe that this was an attempt to spring imprisoned member of Revolutionary Struggle, Nikos Maziotis, from Korydallos Prison, and they also speak as well of anarchist comrade Antonis Stamboulos, bank robber Giorgos Petrakakos and “at least 2 to 3 members” of R.O. – Conspiracy of Cells of Fire who are suspected of participating. The police now attempt to reconstruct the “synchronisation” of the imprisoned comrades and locate the woman who made the defeated hijacking operation.
Maziotis is held in the isolation dungeon which is the basement of the Woman’s Section of Korydallos, where members of R.O. – November 17 and R.O. – Conspiracy of Cells of Fire are also held. Searches by the security forces took place in all parts of the isolation basement yesterday night revealing absolutely nothing.
Tags: 17 November, Antonis Stamboulos, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire : Imprisoned Members Cell, Giorgos Petrakakos, Greece, Korydallos Prison, Nikos Maziotis, Pola Roupa, Revolutionary Struggle
Posted in Prison Struggle
CCF Escape Trial: Case postponed due to Lawyer’s Strike (Greece)
Wednesday, February 17th, 2016
15 Feb: Today starts the trial for the CCF escape plan. The trial didn’t begin because the lawyers have gone on strike for their “job rights”.
The next day of trial is set for 22 February.
Long live CCF – FAI/IRF
Tags: Aggeliki Spyropoulou, Athens, CCF Escape case, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Greece, Korydallos Prison, Trial
Posted in Prison Struggle
Flyposter: Project Gorgopotamos – CCF Escape Trial (Greece)
Monday, February 15th, 2016
Tags: Aggeliki Spyropoulou, Athens, CCF Escape case, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Flyposter, Greece, Korydallos Prison, Trial
Posted in Prison Struggle
Strength to comrade Panagiotis Aspiotis from Network of Combative Prisoners – DAK (Greece)
Sunday, February 14th, 2016
On February 6th, anarchist comrade Panagiotis Aspiotis is transferred
from Navplio prisons allegedly to Koridallos prisons. In reality they
transferred him to the isolation section of the metagogon (transfer
detention cells bulding). A bit later it became known that the comrade,
while having his arms tied up behind his back, got attacked by the
cowardly hooded thugs of the anti-terrorist force who seriously injured
him during but also after the reason for their visit which was no more
than to extract a DNA sample. Later the comrade was transferred to the
hospital for exams. (more…)
Tags: Greece, Korydallos Prison, Network of Fighting Prisoners (NFP), Panagiotis Aspiotis
Posted in Prison Struggle
Korydallos: Prisoners’ Initiative demand an explanation from the Minister of Justice (Greece)
Sunday, February 7th, 2016
1. Aspiotis’ lawyer comments on the torture his client endured in prison
2. Tameio-Athens statement on the assault of Panayotis Aspiotis
Today, Saturday Feb 6th, at 6:30 in the morning, counter-terrorism units intruded the D section of Korydallos prison, in order to remove our fellow prisoner Fabio Dusco, who was brought here the day before from Trikala Prison in order to be present at his trial which commences on the 15th of February. Fabio faces charges as a member of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire for an attempt to escape from prison.
After his kidnap by the counter-terrorism officers he was taken to the Removal Centre on Petrou Ralli street where he is expected to remain for as long as the trial lasts, which could take months. All of these have happened during an ongoing organizing in Korydallos prison against the authoritarian regime of the prison management and the squalid conditions of detention. (more…)
Tags: Athens, CCF Escape case, Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, Fabio Dusco, Greece, Korydallos Prison, Panayotis Aspiotos
Posted in Prison Struggle
