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ATHENS, March 9 (Reuters) – A Greek high court on Tuesday rejected a request by a convicted murderer and a member of the country’s deadliest guerrilla group against his transfer to a jail in central Greece, two months after he started a hunger strike.
Far-left militant Dimitris Koufodinas, 63, is being treated in intensive care at a hospital near the Domokos high-security prison in central Greece. He began his hunger protest on January 8 and suffered kidney failure last week.
A prominent member of the group dissolved Nov. 17, he is serving multiple life sentences for crimes including 13 murders, more than half of the 23 murders the Marxist group says it carried out before its leaders were arrested in 2002.
Koufodinas, who was once nicknamed “Poison Hand” by some Greek media because of his deadly target, says a government order for his transfer to Domokos in December was illegal. He wants to return to the Korydallos prison in Athens, where other members convicted of November 17 are being held.
Greece’s highest administrative court ruled that it did not have the authority to issue a temporary ruling freezing the state-ordered transfer. It will examine in April whether that decision was legal, the semi-official Athens news agency said.
Authorities had previously rejected his request, citing a recent reform of the prison system and an increase in COVID-19 cases in the region where the Korydallos prison is located.
Supporters and civil rights activists, including members of the left-wing opposition, have organized protests against what they see as the intransigent and arbitrary stance taken by the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Petrol bomb attacks on conservative police and politicians have also increased.
Mitsotakis’s brother-in-law was one of those killed by Koufodinas. The government says it will not give in to blackmail and that convicts cannot decide where they will serve their sentences. (Reporting by Renee Maltezou, Timothy Heritage edition)
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