A convicted Greek urban terrorist serving 11 life sentences was granted his fifth furlough from prison on Thursday, this time for six straight days.
The decision, by members of a relevant prison council, means that “17 November” arch-assassin Dimitris Koufodinas will spend the New Year’s holidays at his residence.
Koufodinas is set for release on Friday from a prison farm outside the central city of Volos, where he was transferred from a greater Athens area penitentiary, considered a maximum security facility, last August. That development itself was greeted by criticism.
Each of Koufodinas’ previous furloughs have also generated sharp criticism by family members of 17N’s dozens of victims, much of the mainstream political opposition in the country and the governments of the United States, Turkey and the UK, as the ultra-leftist terror gang’s victims since 1975 included diplomats and military personnel of the latter countries, which were stationed in Greece.
