In a similar case, three other members of Golden Dawn were arrested in the city of Volos while transporting Molotov cocktails and bullets. One of them confessed that he intended to set a makeshit mosque in Volos on ire. The result? The examining magistrate let them walk free on restrictive terms.45 Although we do not intend to criticize the restrictive terms regime, we should however note that this milder measure (compared to temporary detention) of restriction of personal freedom was the magistrate’s choice in a country with an otherwise strong tradition of temporary detention, especially regarding crimes related to public order and security: out of a total of 12,479 prisoners in the country, 4,254 await trial.46 The violent incidents against foreigners, homosexuals, Romani and “political enemies” that were reported, recorded or published number in the hundreds, and the actual number of all such incidents remains unknown. Such attacks are not always easy to detect. In part this is because foreign victims, the most typical though not exclusive target of such attacks, are afraid to report their cases to the authorities, as there is no protective framework for them. This fear is not accidental and has everything to do with the violence experienced by victims and witnesses. According to an eyewitness of the attempted murder against Dimitris Kousouris, “about ten people were holding sticks, thick wooden sticks from fences, about 1.5 metres long. They were marching orderly, like soldiers … They were tall, big; they had a goon-like appearance and were it … They started beating the young men, all together, with the sticks … The third one had already fallen down from the hits on his head, and the whole group of ten kept beating him with the sticks, they were kicking him as he lay down. [Person X.] and I approached the perpetrators, we put ourselves in danger … One of the young men who were lying down was full of blood, there was blood everywhere, and his face was deformed by the hits. We told the perpetrators ‘go away already, you killed him’. Four or ive of them kept beating him, while the others had formed a ring around them, waving their sticks so that nobody could approach to help”. However, having so vividly described the incident, which must have stuck in mind, this witness refused to answer the examining magistrate’s questions and identify the perpetrators, and at the same time refused to provide any facial description, repeating: “I do not remember”. B | A LOST CHANCE FOR THE JUDICIARY “A lot of people had surrounded us, maybe 30 persons. They told us that the perpetrators were about ten persons, hair cut short; they were holding wooden sticks … We did not ask for the identities of the people there, because they talked nonsense”. This is an excerpt of testimony by a police oicer regarding witnesses to the attempted murder of Dimitris Kousouris; it is 45. 46. See http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_articles_ell_3_22/11/2012_502511. Ministry of Justice, oicial data. MAPPING ULTRA-RIGHT EXTREMISM, XENOPHOBIA AND RACISM WITHIN THE GREEK STATE APPARATUS | 47

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