ATHENS (Reuters) – A Greek court on Tuesday ordered the pre-trial detention of a 31-year-old man on terrorism-related charges over an Athens apartment blast which killed a man and hurt a woman last week, legal and police sources said.
The bomb exploded as it was being made, police have said, linking the incident with anti-establishment guerrilla groups. So far three people face charges in the case.
The newly detained man, who has an arrest record in Germany, testified on Friday and has been charged with setting up and participating in a terrorist group and with illegal possession of a gun and explosives, among other charges.
He denies any wrongdoing, his lawyer George Kakarnias said.
“His only involvement is that he had a pair of keys for the flat, he has nothing to do with the acts described in the charges,” Kakarnias told Reuters.
On Monday, police arrested a 30-year old Greek woman who is a Swiss resident. She will respond to charges this week. The 33-year-old woman who was injured in the Oct. 31 blast and is now being treated in an Athens hospital is also under arrest.
Police, who found guns, bullets, notes and laptops in the flat and have analysed CCTV footage, believe that the group, including the 36-year old man who was killed, had been planning an attack on Oct. 31. The target remains unknown.
“It was a monstrous bomb made of condensed explosive material,” Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis said on Monday, suggesting that the group aspired to revive guerrilla violence.
Several self-proclaimed anarchist guerrilla groups, declaring war on all forms of government, emerged in Greece after the 2002 dismantling of its deadliest group “November 17”.
Bomb and arson attacks against politicians, police, judges and businesses were frequent during Greece’s 2009-18 debt crisis. They have abated in recent years but still occur.
(Reporting by Yannis Souliotis and Renee Maltezou; Editing by Gareth Jones)
