Greece’s Supreme Court has detailed the legal and factual grounds for overturning the conditional release of convicted November 17 ringleader Alexandros Giotopoulos, ruling that the convicted urban terrorist failed to meet the statutory requirement of 25 years of actual imprisonment and that lower-court judges did not adequately justify their finding that the former could safely reintegrate into society.
In a 26-page ruling, the fifth criminal division of the Supreme Court annulled the decision of the Piraeus Appeals Council that had allowed the 82-year-old Giotopoulos to leave prison last month, finding that the lower court had erred both in its interpretation of the legal requirements for parole and in its assessment of the substantive conditions governing the release of prisoners serving multiple life sentences.
The ruling, issued by a panel headed by Supreme Court Vice President Panagiotis Lymperopoulos, held that legislation adopted in 2021 explicitly requires prisoners serving multiple life terms to complete 25 years of actual imprisonment before becoming eligible for conditional release.
Giotopoulos, who is serving 17 life sentences plus an additional 25-year prison term, had been released after the appeals court concluded that he had served sufficient time in custody. The Supreme Court rejected that interpretation, ruling that the 25-year threshold had not been met and therefore the formal legal conditions for his release were not satisfied.
The justices also found shortcomings in the lower court’s reasoning regarding whether Giotopoulos met the substantive requirements for release. According to the ruling, the appeals court failed to adequately explain how it concluded that the prisoner had demonstrated the prospect of lawful future conduct and safe reintegration into society.
The Supreme Court further noted that the lower court itself acknowledged that Giotopoulos had neither accepted responsibility for his crimes nor expressed remorse. The justices said the appeals ruling did not sufficiently explain why those findings did not affect its assessment of his rehabilitation and suitability for release.
As a result of the annulment, the parole decision is no longer valid and Giotopoulos has returned to prison. His request for conditional release will now be reconsidered by the Piraeus Appeals Council under a different judicial composition.
The French-educated Giotopoulos was convicted as the leader and chief strategist of November 17, the militant Marxist group responsible for a campaign of assassinations and bombings between 1975 and 2002 that killed 23 people, including Greek politicians, businessmen, police officers and foreign diplomats and military staff. He was arrested on the Dodecanese island of Lipsi in 2002 and ultimately sentenced to 17 life terms plus 25 years in prison. Throughout the investigation and trials, he denied the charges against him.
