Greek far-right MPs charged with electoral fraud

Greece’s Supreme Court on Thursday prosecuted 13 people including a jailed neo-Nazi and lawmakers of a new nationalist party for alleged voter fraud, a judicial source said.

Supreme Court prosecutor Georgia Adeilini ordered the move on Ilias Kasidiaris, the former spokesman of neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, 11 current and former lawmakers of the Spartans party, and a lawyer allegedly implicated in the case.

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They are accused of using the Spartans party as a front, with Kasidiaris allegedly pulling the strings from inside prison.

Adeilini had been investigating the case since September, after Spartans party leader Vasilis Stigkas faced a party mutiny and accused some of his lawmakers of being “guided” by persons “outside parliament”.

This was deemed a reference to Kasidiaris, a Third Reich admirer who endorsed the Spartans in June elections.

They ended up winning over 240,000 votes and 12 seats in parliament, and Stigkas at the time publicly thanked Kasidiaris for “fuelling” their rise.

One of their MPs has since turned independent. Another defected from the party on Thursday after the prosecution was announced.

Kasidiaris, 43, is serving a 13-year prison sentence with other leading members of Golden Dawn over crimes including the murder of an anti-fascist rapper.

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The Kathimerini newspaper on Thursday said the investigation showed that Kasidiaris had held “recurring” contacts with Spartans candidates before the vote.

The hot-tempered former food scientist, who was a lawmaker from 2012 to 2019, has preached to his supporters through voice messages from prison and a YouTube channel that has more than 140,000 followers.

He sparked a major legal wrangle last year when he tried to run for parliament at the head of another newly formed far-right party, Hellenes.

After that failed because of a legal hurdle, he switched his support to the little-known Spartans, who only appeared in opinion polls weeks before the vote.

© Agence France-Presse