The Direct Action Cells claim responsibility for the incendiary attack on the office of far-right lawyer and failed politician Vasilis Kapernaros in the Kypseli neighborhood in the early hours of April 2. Just as we did the last time we attacked a collaborator in the crimes of Tempi (the Vozenberg residence, February 2025), so now we name the cell that carried out the attack after the armed urban guerrilla Kyriakos Xymiteris. We call upon all fighting revolutionary forces. Every comrade who devises subversive plans and puts them into action through dynamic acts, to take up the torch and honor the memory of our comrade as he deserves. To set fire to the quiet nights of the metropolis. To take the risks that are necessary so that we can show through our actions that there is no better way to remember and honour our dead than by intensifying the war against the rot of the system and its dominant culture.
The reason for our group’s attack on the office of that wretched individual known as Kapernaros is his active involvement in covering up the crime at Tempi, as he is the lawyer for Interstar Security, the company responsible for security and video surveillance of the railway network. The company that concealed for years the videos of the trains that collided that day and, along with other parties, contributed to the concealment of critical evidence regarding the crime. At this moment, the company’s legal representative and two ΟΣΕ executives are on trial for failing to hand over the videos of the freight train being loaded at the station in Thessaloniki. In this courtroom, as relatives of the victims report, Kapernaros bursts in with an escort, taunts and bullies people, culminating in a vile attack on former hunger striker Panos Routsis.
To put it more plainly, we’re dealing with a servile lackey. A few months ago, and “coincidentally” immediately after Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s interview—in which he wondered if there were any videos from the tunnels showing the freight train —the eager scoundrel appeared, donning the guise of a saviour lawyer, with three “forgotten” videos, which he even shared with an old acquaintance of ours, Aris Portosalte. He therefore chose to bear the burden of responsibility for distorting the facts and burying the truth of the Tempi crime, placing himself in the spotlight of public criticism—as such megalomaniacal figures always desire. The criticism we have consistently chosen is that of fire and revolutionary praxis.
Kapernaros, the son of a cop, grew up in post-Civil War Greece in an environment that can be summed up by the slogan “Fatherland – Religion – Family.” He, too, is just another two-bit patriot like those who donned hoods and betrayed resistance fighters to the occupiers, later fighting them in the mountains at the behest of their new masters as “bandits.” Like those who, exploiting the people’s hunger and hardships, amassed fortunes like black marketeers. All these vermin presented themselves to the post-civil war state as good Christians and patriots, while they were the greatest scum in the history of this land.
Today, all of them—like Kapernaros—are peddling the same old lies, obscuring their sordid role. He plays the part of a good Christian and, above all, a patriot, while at the same time playing an active role in covering up the crime at Tempi. Ten years ago, he was supposedly selling an anti-memorandum, while behind the scenes he was setting up the serious Golden Dawn as another reserve force for the system to prevent the rise of the left and, even more so, to prevent it from shifting toward more radical directions. He naturally also participated in the Golden Dawn trial as the lawyer for MP Nikos Kouzilos, while simultaneously setting up various factions of the right-wing political spectrum, such as the Radical National Alarm and the Patriotic Radical Union, with various “serious” Golden Dawn MPs like Synadinos, Koukoutsis, and Sveroni. At the same time, his relationship with the former secretary-general of the Samaras government, Takis Baltakos, is well known. Baltakos was not merely the government’s liaison with Golden Dawn; he was the key proponent of the “serious” Golden Dawn scenario mentioned above, which would operate based on the historical role of fascists. As a crutch for the system in times of crisis and destabilisation.
Of course, as a good right-winger, a Christian and a patriot who respects himself, he was involved in a 5-million-euro tax evasion scandal in 2013, while serving as a civil attorney in the Lingeridis trial, representing the family of the deceased butcher. It’s practically a tradition in this country for all these crooks from the right-wing establishment to maintain ties with law enforcement and siphon off public funds. In almost all the financial scandals, big or small, that come to light from time to time—especially over the last 15 years—one observes a common pattern. If not all, then most of them belong to the political right. They spout plenty of patriotic rhetoric, have good connections with official institutions, and point the finger at anyone who resists putting the brakes on this downward spiral. All of this serves as a cover for lining their own pockets with public funds, without, of course, any of them ever being punished by the non-existent justice system.
We noted years ago, when we visited the homes of certain high-ranking members of the judicial mafia, that the civil justice system does not address the problem. It is the problem itself. One does not need to be an anarchist to understand this point. With each passing day, it becomes even clearer to anyone concerned how this system operates. It dons the cloak of the Dragon when dealing with political opponents of the system, but also with vulnerable people who lack political backing. It violates the “presumption of innocence,” tramples even on civil laws themselves, piles them up in prisons, and robs them of their very lives with great ease. In all these cases, the harsh and “uncompromising” judges push the limits of the law and bury people for years in the labor camps we now call detention centers. On the other hand, the same judges become sensitive and compassionate when their own children are accused. That is why, if you look inside prisons, you will find only a handful of all those criminals who, in reality, are the only ones terrorising society.
Two high-profile political trials are currently underway, cases that reflect all the double standards governing not only the civil justice system and the police, but the civil system itself. We are referring, on the one hand, to the trial for the crime in Tempi and, on the other, to the trial of our comrades in the Ampelokipi case. This is a diabolical coincidence, as we believe that a comparison of the two cases convinces even the most naive observer of just how methodically and dirty police investigations and judicial inquiries operate in this country. As we mentioned above, how harsh, repressive, and sweeping state mechanisms are in one case, while at the same time how slow, “careless,” and “lenient” they become when it comes to cleaning up the mess left by their political superiors in the other.
The glaring contradictions of the judicial mafia, of course, come as no surprise to us. They elicit a bitter smile of confirmation of the obvious, but the horror and brutality of the power that certain modern-day inquisitors can wield against the lives and freedom of other people cannot be dismissed as ordinary or normal. Anyone who expects the accomplices and lackeys of murderers to deliver justice is doomed to live in darkness and with their eyes cast down. Anyone who allows a comrade from the Ampelokipi case to be condemned bloodlessly and without cost should expect the passage of time to drag them into a life devoid of purpose and direction, for that is the only way to describe the acceptance of defeat. Arkadias Street on 31st October 2024 was marked by an explosion of choices, by the stride of a man, a sure and steady step toward a head-on collision. A critical moment, a moment of choices, lies before us today. We will not issue threats against those who hold the fate of the freedom of our comrades on trial in their hands. Whether they prove hollow, or the actions and events that will unfold will be irrevocably etched into Time. We remind only those who still hold the spark within them for revenge and revolution, for a world for people and not a world without humanity, of the selfless example and the life chosen by those who turned that spark into an explosion. Kyriakos, Christos, Lambros, Christoforos. Their struggles and their calls for an escalation of the war. The time has come for conscious and critical choices for everyone. Because in the face of the kingdom of defeatism and assimilation, we will choose Imagination, Optimism, and Risk.
STRENGTH AND SOLIDARITY WITH MARIANNA MANOURA, DIMITRA ZARAFETA, DIMITRIS P., NIKOS ROMANOS, AND ARGYRI K.
THE ARMED REVOLUTIONARY KYRIAKOS XYMITIRIS WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US
REVOLUTIONARY MEMORY FOR ALESSANDRO MARCOGLIANO AND SARA ARDIZZONE
VICTORY IN THE HUNGER STRIKE OF ARISTOTELIS HANTZIS AND THE STRUGGLE OF THE REFUGEE COMMUNITY
Direct Action Cells
Kyriakos Xymiteris Cell
Source: athens.indymedia