Greek neo-Nazi leader granted conditional release

The leader of the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, Nikos Michaloliakos, has been granted conditional release from prison five years into a 13-and-a-half-year sentence, state news agency ANA says.

A judicial council allowed the 67-year-old mathematician and Holocaust denier to serve his remaining sentence at home on health grounds, the agency said.

It is the second time Michaloliakos has been let out of prison following his conviction in 2020 over Golden Dawn’s long litany of violent attacks on immigrants and political opponents.

He was briefly released in May 2024 before judicial officials determined he had not shown good behavior and should return to prison.

Crimes tied to Golden Dawn included the 2013 murders of an anti-fascist rapper and a Pakistani migrant, as well as the beatings of Egyptian fishermen and Communist trade unionists.

The xenophobic and antisemitic organization created by Michaloliakos was for decades a fringe party, until Greece’s 2010 debt crisis.

The group then capitalized on public anger over immigration and austerity cuts, entering parliament for the first time in 2012.

At the height of its influence, it was the country’s third-biggest party.

It has since almost disappeared from the political scene, after the conviction of its leader and dozens of members, whose appeal trial, which began in 2022, is still underway.

Golden Dawn figures still behind bars include former European Parliament member Yiannis Lagos, who was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and extradited from Belgium in 2021 to serve a sentence of 13 years and eight months.