A former justice minister’s explosive claims this week of previously warning then prime minister Alexis Tsipras that certain proposed revisions in Greece’s penal code – ones supported by the latter’s leftist government – could impact the Golden Dawn case, led to the former’s expulsion late Thursday evening.
In an announcement, the main opposition party, which now goes by the full name of SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, said it was expelling former minister Stavros Kontonis. No decision by an internal party organ was cited, with the announcement merely saying Kontonis had forfeited his right to be a party member.
Moreover, the terse party announcement charged that the timing of Kontonis’ statements, coming a day after a landmark series of guilty verdicts in the Golden Dawn trial, aimed to degrade “a hugely popular victory against the criminal organization”.
In a caustic late-night response to his former comrades, Kontonis said that “after 41 years in the left, they’re saying I am now a fifth column of the right; they’re pitiful, sycophants and liars.”
Among others, Kontonis said the criminal code revisions proposed as legislation by a SYRIZA government, and passed by its slim majority in Parliament only days before the snap July 2019 election, softened the maximum sentence guidelines now applicable to the Golden Dawn defendants found guilty on Wednesday.
