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Ballistic tests indicate terror group gunned down slain journalist

21. July 2010. | 08:30

Source: ANA

According to a statement to police by Giolias' wife, an unknown man rang the doorbell of their second-floor apartment at about 5:20 a.m. and when Giolias opened the door the man told him that the alarm of his car, parked outside the apartment building, had gone off.

According to a statement to police by Giolias' wife, an unknown man rang the doorbell of their second-floor apartment at about 5:20 a.m. and when Giolias opened the door the man told him that the alarm of his car, parked outside the apartment building, had gone off.

When Giolias descended to the building entrance where he had parked his car, the gunmen were waiting in ambush and shot him several times as he came out of the elevator, killing him on the spot.
The perpetrators, tentatively believed to be three, fled in a car.

At around 7:00 a.m. a burned car was found approximately 1.5 kilometers from the murder scene, and police believe it was the killers' getaway car. The car had been stolen from nearby Alimos two days earlier (Saturday, July 7) and its theft had been reported by the owner to the local police station.

The motives of the killing are still unknown, and police are examining all possibilities.
According to an eye-witness account, the perpetrators were at least three and were wearing uniforms, possibly of a security company or the municipal police.

Based on the method used and ferocity of the attack, police initially surmised that it was a contract killing, since the attack was well-organised.

Giolias' wife, who has suffered an intense shock, and the couple's 3-year-old child were in the apartment at the time of the killing.

Reactions

The government expressed its strong condemnation of the "cowardly, cold-blooded murder", and expressed its condolences to the victim's family.

"Democracy and freedom of speech cannot be muzzled, terro-rised or threatened," government spokesman George Petalotis said, adding that the authorities have already taken action to arrest the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

Petalotis disassociated the killing from "social violence", warning that "if we adopt such an idea, it would be tantamount to lending legitimacy to what happened".

In a written statement, parliament president Philippos Petsal-nikos, on behalf of the House, expressed rage and grief over the killing, and conveyed the MPs' condolences to Giolias' family.

Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party press officer Panos Panagiotopoulos, a former journalist himself, said the "cold-blooded murder of journalist Socrates Giolias creates sentiments of abhorrence in the public and shocks the journalistic family, of which he was an eminent member".

He added that Greek society was expecting the authorities to quickly solve "this very dark case" and "locate and arrest the murderers as speedily as possible".

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) condemned "the heinous murder" and expressed its condolences to the deceased's family.

Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) leader George Karatzaferis said that "today is a sad day because not only a courageous journalist was murdered but journalism itself".

"Socrates Giolias' murder was an act of intimidation, a death contract signed by those who were displeased with Socrates' revealing reporting," Karatzaferis added.

The Coalition of the Left, Movements and Ecology (SYN) said the "gangster-style" murder has caused shock among journalists but also more generally as well, and expressed its condolences to the deceased's family.

The Panhellenic Federation of Journalists' Unions (POESY) strongly condemned the killing, adding that the execution of the killing employed the most barbarous method witnessed by Greek society, and renders imperative the immediate and drastic action of the authorities to solve the crime and bring the perpetrators to justice.

POESY also expressed condolences to Giolias' family, stressing that it was at their side.

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