On July 7th, 2011, here in Larissa prisons where I am held and convicted over a bank robbery, I was served with a new warrant of detention accused for another robbery of a bank on Cephalonia Island in July 2009.
I must simply remind that the attempt of the prosecuting authorities to charge me or Alfredo Bonanno with this exact robbery goes back to the distant month of February 2010, when the two of us were held in pretrial detention for the robbery of the Piraeus Bank in Trikala.
It was clear both to me and Bonanno that the precise orchestration by the prosecuting authorities was intended to create the appropriate negative conditions back then, especially in view of the forthcoming hearing regarding Bonanno’s request for release on the grounds of serious health problems.
Indeed, in February 2010 the particular prosecuting manipulation was channeled in an appropriate way to all kinds of corporate media, going so far as to name Bonanno as the perpetrator of that robbery with me as his accomplice.
Despite the blatant lies which were published against us, the goal of the prosecuting authorities was eventually achieved, i.e. the prevention of Bonanno’s release on serious health grounds.
Everything was forgotten in relation to this incident ever since (February 2010), as if nothing had happened; and suddenly (after a year and a half) I was served here in Larissa, as I mentioned, the warrant of detention on charges of the specific robbery.
From reading the case file which eventually came into my hands after an adventure, it quickly became apparent that this is most clearly a prosecuting manipulation of the local law enforcement authorities, most probably assisted by other agencies to get rid of an unresolved bank robbery case on Cephalonia, clearly charging me personally with it —since their attempt to involve Bonanno in this case has been more than ridiculous.
In point of fact, they have ordered one more pretrial detention at my expense, practically preventing me from being granted a temporary leave to which I’m already entitled under the Penal Code, since I have served more than 1/5 of my sentence. And they do so with absolutely no serious evidence against me, having even orchestrated a substantive fabrication of the alleged evidence that naturally took them one and a half full year. This certainly explains why they suddenly remembered me again.
In the final analysis, it is more than clear that the new attempt to associate either me or Bonanno with this specific case is solely based on the premise of the prosecuting authorities that once proven to have committed a bank robbery in Trikala, we have surely committed more, but without holding the necessary evidence against us.
It becomes apparent that this time such a prosecuting manipulation at my expense is intended to negatively affect the conditions in view of the conduct of my appeal regarding the robbery case of Trikala, next February —having as their ultimate goal to keep me imprisoned for the longest time possible.
I therefore need to denounce publicly these arrangements on the part of the prosecuting authorities at my own and Bonanno’s expense, because deep down — as evidenced also by the brief history of this case’s development that I quoted above — the real and only reason for our continued prosecution is the fact that both of us are anarchists and revolutionaries.
Christos Stratigopoulos
Workers’ wing, Larissa judicial prisons [Dikastikes filakes Larissas], 41001 Larissa, Greece
Source: athens.indymedia.org (September 21st, 2011)
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