November 17 hitman out on leave again

Dimitris Koufodinas, a leading member of November 17, Greece's most deadly guerrilla group, emerged from Attica's maximum-security Korydallos Prison at 9 a.m. on Friday on a two-day leave, just three months after a previous furlough, against a strong reaction by opposition politicians and the US government.

The 60-year-old convict, who was N17's key hitman, is expected to return to prison on Sunday morning. He is restricted to his home area of Varnavas in northeastern Attica and must report at the local police stations twice a day.

New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose brother-in-law Pavlos Bakoyiannis was assassinated by November 17, said that the law allowing such criminals to obtain furlough will be among the first ones to be abolished when his party returns to office.

Koufodinas's lawyer, Ioanna Kourtovik, said on Friday morning that the...