Police hunt 'grandfathers' of Greek terrorism

Police are searching for the elderly ringleaders of a shadowy Greek terrorist group responsible for the murder of a British military attache two years ago.

The arrest of seven alleged members of the November 17 group are a major breakthrough and the first since the group appeared 27 years ago.

Police chief Fotis Nassiakos said the suspects included a ringleader and three brothers who were allegedly among the group’s assassins.

Two of the brothers have confessed to numerous killings, including the murder Brigadier Stephen Saunders, who was shot dead on his way to work in Athens.

Three of the suspects were charged with murder and armed robbery yesterday. The other four, including the alleged leader, 58-year-old Alexandros Giotopoulos, were detained without charge.

Police dubbed Giotopoulos ‘‘the instructor’’ of the close-knit gang of gunmen who formed Europe’s most elusive terrorist group.

The arrests came as a relief to a country preparing to host the Olympic Games in 2004, but authorities stress the manhunt is far from over.

‘‘We are on a good road,’’ Premier Costas Simitis said. ‘‘But this will be a long process that requires time and thoroughness.’’

Police are still looking for a group of men believed to be in their 60s - known as the ‘‘grandfathers’’ in the Greek media - who formed the organisation in 1975 after the collapse of a military dictatorship.

The group is named in memory of the crushing of a student revolt by the military junta in 1973.

November 17’s 22 victims, killed during scores of shootings and bomb attacks, include Brigadier Saunders and Greek judges and business leaders.

Doubts have emerged that the Giotopoulos could have planned the attacks alone.

‘‘It is not possible that one man could have organised this all by himself. He must have had helpers,’’ said Giorgos Petsos, a former Socialist cabinet minister who was wounded in a November 17 bomb attack in 1989.

The US, which in the past has strongly criticised Greece’s failure to prosecute terrorists, welcomed the arrests with caution.

Police operations have ‘‘led to some success in an effort against this group that has operated for a long time, and we commend them for that,’’ US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Greeks have been watching the events unfold with amazement as bizarre details emerge of the long-feared militant group.

The first breakthrough in the Greek authorities’ 27 year hunt for the group came after a botched bombing attempt by religious icon painter Savas Xiros.

Police soon found suspected hide-outs filled with weapons in Athens apartments.

Xiros and his brothers, Christodoulos and Vassilis, sons of a Greek Orthodox priest, are key suspects in the case. Others include a beekeeper and a guitarist in an amateur rock band.

Giotopoulos was arrested on the tiny Greek island of Lipsi and flown to Athens by helicopter. He had drawn some local attention after refusing to paint his house white as ordered by the island’s municipality, instead opting for pink.

Christodoulos Xiros, a musical-instrument maker, accused of involvement in eight murders, a string of bombings and the theft of anti-tank shells from a military base, appeared in a TV interview three days before his arrest.

‘‘My family and I are living a nightmare,’’ he said after visiting his injured brother. ‘‘The police have evidence but no suspects - I am innocent and so is my brother.’’

November 17, which police estimate has fewer than a dozen members, was believed to have targeted Americans and their allies because of Washington’s backing of the Greek military dictatorship, which ruled from 1967 to 1974.