Neo-Nazism

The first of some 18 former lawmakers belonging to the extreme-right Golden Dawn party to take the stand in the final phase of a trial which began in 2015 claimed on Wednesday that he is not a neo-Nazi but a Greek nationalist who despises Germans.

Some 18 former lawmakers of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party are set to take the stand on Tuesday in what is the final phase of the trial which began in 2015 and is now entering the final straight.

Their testimonies will be the last after almost 400 days of hearings, during which hardly any of them appeared in court.

Six years after musician and rapper Pavlos Fyssas was murdered by a self-professed member of Golden Dawn and over four years after the trial into the neo-Nazi party got under way, the time is nearing for its 18 former lawmakers to take the stand.

An anti-fascist rally marking six years since the killing of a leftist musician by a member of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn got underway in the district of Keratsini on Wednesday, headed by the victim's mother, Magda Fyssa.

The march will end at the offices of Golden Dawn in Piraeus.

Moving trucks and crews were spotted on Saturday removing boxes and furniture out of the headquarters of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party on Mesogeion Avenue, north of central Athens.

According to a post by a user on Twitter, the operation included the removal of the party's sign from the office building's facade.

Golden Dawn European Parliament Member Yiannis Lagos and former MP Nikos Michos were found guilty on Friday over a July 2013 attack on a community center in the eastern Athens suburb of Ilioupoli.

Judges in the long-running trial of Golden Dawn (GD) on Thursday are finally hearing from Giorgos Roupakias, the man charged with the murder of rapper Pavlos Fyssas in September 2013.

Yorgos Patelis, the former leader of the strong Nikaia cell of the paramilitary branch of Golden Dawn, which was responsible for the mobilisation of the neo-Nazi party's storm troopers who murdered anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, today told the judge at his trial that he had nothing to do with the murder.

Testifying in the trial of Golden Dawn on Wednesday, Giorgos Patelis, the former head of the neo-Nazi party's Nikaia chapter in southwest Athens, denied any involvement in the killing of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in 2013.

Four years into the trial of Golden Dawn as a criminal organisation and for the murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, the court began hearing the testimony of those charged in the case.