Greek Police Probe Attacks on Ruling Party Officials’ Homes

Greek anti-terrorist police units are investigating after gas canister bombs were placed outside the apartment buildings of three officials of the ruling New Democracy party in Thessaloniki early on Wednesday, injuring five people.

Police in Thessaloniki told BIRN that the attack took place “at 4 a.m. on Wednesday in three different locations in the city”, adding that “five people were injured, one seriously”.

Police did not name the three targets. But government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis revealed that they were former MP Savvas Anastasiadis, president of New Democracy’s Thessaloniki Steering Committee Zisis Ioakimovits, and parliamentary candidate Afroditi Nestora.

“When you put gas canister bombs … in cars and houses where people live, you accept the possibility that they may die. In reality, you know that the consequence could be a serious injury, or the death of a fellow citizen,” Marinakis said on SKAI radio.

The gas canisters placed in the open ground-floor parking area of Nestora’s apartment building injured five people, including Nestora, her father, and her mother, who is in intensive care in hospital in Thessaloniki.

“Those who carried out the attacks in Thessaloniki are stupid and unrepentant people who deserve severe punishment, arrest, and surrender to justice,” the Minister of Citizens Protection, Michalis Chrysochoidis, said in a press release.

Konstantia Dimoglidou, the Greek police’s spokesperson, told BIRN that the incidents are “under investigation by the Greek Police’s Anti-Terrorist Unit in Thessaloniki, which is still ongoing”.