4th meeting

The trial continued with rejoinders of the advocates of defence on the demand of allowing radio-television coverage of the trial.

The court rejected the demand of the defence for radio-television coverage and videotaping the trial. Immediately after the announcement of this (expected) decision, Dimitris Koufontinas made an important political statement,

"What is going to be done about this industry set up by the counter terrorism unit, that brings all these supposedly new documents to court and which the procecutor then promotes in order to create impressions? I witnessed an insignificant unsubstantial document being used in order to create a new wave of terror hysteria. Certain representatives of the advocates of persecution that argued against the television coverage of the trial, supposedly because it is of no interest for the Greek people, do not lose a chance of appearing on TV outside the courtroom and speaking of the existence of members of 17N that remain unarrested and other similar stories. I know that prosecution has the right from the procedure to bring witnesses during the course of the trial. This document, however, is unsubstantial - I repeat - and insignificant and the only thing it does is to confirm the legal doctrine, that constitutes the enormous contribution of prosecutors to the legal science: once a defendant, always a defendant. This has been experienced Yiannis Serifis, and will now be experienced also by Theologos Psaradellis.

If the trial was covered and there was a camera in this courtroom, this distortion of the truth would not be possible and this document could not be used to create impressions. My advocates, Yianna Kourtovic and Vasilis Karidis, asked for direct transmission of the trial, this big political trial, this sorting of accounts of the system with its opponents. We asked for the direct transmission, in order for the Greek people to see for themselves, the people that are accused as members of the Revolutionary Organisation of 17 November, as they really are and not as trophies of some Roman triumph. So that they can hear their voice, their reasoning, their truth, without mediations, distortions, deformities. So that they can hear their persecutors, see the eminent probative evidence, the defence witnesses that have been brought in. To see and to hear the arguments of the advocates of prosecution, why not? And having heard and seen all this and using their personal experience criteria, to evaluate it.

Why do they not accept this, why did they vote yet another specially tailored law on the eve of the first trial, the law about the prohibition of television coverage? What are they afraid of? Are they so afraid of our reasoning, the reasoning of the people they called ignorant, uneducated and vagrant? We asked for the direct transmission, because from this courtroom will pass a piece of modern Greek history and the Greek people have the right to watch this trial. The exclusion from transmission is equal substantially with the exclusion of the people themselves. It contributes to the effort to rewrite history, to twist the past and it is well- known that a people without a past is a people without future. As today in 1974, on 8/12/1974, the referendum that got rid of kingdom and binned it as useless to Greek history took place.Today, the politician that characterized the verdict of the people as "unfair" commits another "unfair" act, as he is familiar with the interventions of executive power into juridical power, and he < indicates to the court what it should do. I did not expect a different decision ".

The next objection of the defence concerned the bad composition of the court. It is an objection that is placed in all political trials related to "terrorism" and is about the second clause of the counter terrorism law 3029/2003, that pertains the prequalification of certain judges and public prosecutors out of which the compositions of courts are subsequently drawn by lot.

Politically this provision was established in order to make sure the compositions of these special courts would not come up with surprises. Legally, this ad hoc regulation deprives the defendants from their natural judge. It is contrary to in the Constitution and in the ESDA.