DN Note: We have decided to post these two texts from Christos Tsakalos, a former member of anarchist urban guerrilla organization Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, who represented a “third pole” of anarchist thought in Greece, anarcho-individualism and nihilism, contrasting it with social anarchism and insurrectionary anarchism.
Since mid-November 2010, Tsakalos had been at large, as a warrant for his arrest was issued shortly after the arrest of his brother Gerasimos. On March 14, 2011, he and four other comrades were arrested in Volos. He was prosecuted for the “Volos case” (alleged bank robbery, while being dressed up like cops), for his involvement with explosives and guns, which were found on other people prosecuted for the same case (arrests in Pireus and Kallithea), for the 14 parcel bombs case, for the case concerning 250 attacks by CCF between 2008 and 2011, for the text in solidarity with Anarchist Squat Nadir (second eviction in October 2011), written by CCF, for his personal text denying the cooperation with prosecuting authorities (instigating violence), for an attempted prison escape along with another three CCF’s members in December 2011 and for taking three prison guards hostage and for instigation concerning “Phoenix” project. He is also prosecuted for an attack at a bank in the centre of Athens, in 2007, as his DNA was allegedly found on the scene. He was also prosecuted by the Italian state after a law suit by former Italian prime minster Silvio Berlusconi, concerning the parcel bomb which was shipped to him and he was also under investigation concerning “Ardire” case, which was launched on June 2012 by the Italian prosecuting authorities.
Christos was serving originally 7 years for charges stemming from the ‘Halandri’ case and 24 years and 2 months for the Fire Cells Conspiracy case. In 2016 he was sentenced to a further 115 years for an attempted escape from prison and other CCF attacks.
On 24/7/2019 under the provisions of the Paraskevopoulos Law, Christos and his brother Gerasimos who were serving time as members of the “Conspiracy of Cells of Fire” were released, having served a third of their reduced sentences.
Christos was arrested on 09/02/2024 in an operation that involved a supposed police informer who has been paid 20,000 euros. He had been originally accused of involvement in the Greek Mafia, especially in bombings that have occured in a mafia war that has been raging in Greece for several years now. He was coonected originally to two Greek navy SEAL members, arrested at the same time elsewhere, who had with them explosives most likely taken from a military base. This connection with the others, including with the the mafia, bombings and other larger charges have been dropped. He has been imprisoned for 2 years and 1 month without appeal under the newly passed Penal Code, for the misdeamours of a pistol with bullets and drugs that were discovered in a property he was staying at that was not his own.
DN Update: We also add the introductory text of the comrades from Informativo Anarquista & their translattion of the two texts further below. We agree with our Chilean comrades analysis of the situation surrounding comrade Christos Tsakalos. We would like to add that for too long there has been a putrid smell of not only propaganda vomited by the Greek media about Christos and other former members/comrades of CCF but also we are aware of the slander and gossip in anarchist circles, the movement in Greece & internationally, who even replicate the words of the media scum, state and cops.
We are reminded of the quote from a poster in solidarity with the CCF:
“The Slime of the Media feeds the unstoppable Terrorlust of the TV Audience”
On February 10, 2024, police raided four houses, investigating a possible exchange of explosives. The detainees are two members of the Greek Navy, a nightclub bouncer and comrade Christos Tsakalos, a former member of the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire.
According to the Greek press, pistols, ammunition of various calibers, fragmentation and incendiary grenades, flares, industrial fuse, detonators and two sealed boxes filled with TNT were seized during the raids.
The Navy members were referred to a Maritime Court, for possession of explosives and weapons, while the discotheque bouncer and Christos Tsakalos were prosecuted for the crime of arms control.
Finally, an Athens Court sentenced comrade Christos Tsakalos to two years and one month in prison without parole.
Note from Informativo Anarquista
The almost non-existent translations, dialogues and information exchanges dangerously distance us from the anarchist realities of other territories, especially when we speak different languages, therefore, we do not know more details about what the hegemonic press has vomited against comrade Christos after his release from prison and his new arrest.
Whatever the scum of power may say about our comrades must be read with the utmost care, as they are ultimately the complicit voice of our enemies, their propaganda tool. Their headlines, news and reports are nothing more than the graphic representation of the hatred and fear that Power has towards anarchist ideas and practices, against our history, our memory, prisoners, fugitives, dead and active comrades in the work of revolt. Let us understand that their designs and fantasies will never be the truth, they will always be an easy trigger to delegitimize our denials.
For months the Greek media has been linking the comrade with the mafias dedicated to the smuggling of fuel, designating him almost as the leader of one of the most powerful groups in the sector, also linking him with bombs that have detonated in Greece and that the police attribute to territorial disputes between mafias.
As Informativo Anarquista, we recognize Christos Tsakalos as a comrade, we believe in his warrior word. It is the voice of the comrades the only channel of communication we have between anarchists, without intermediaries or representatives.
We encourage you to review and correct the translations below.
Source: Informatovo Anarquista
And now some truth gentlemen…
One misdemeanor two years in jail, that’s the math of the new penal code. First they set up a fearful lie with “terrorists” and Greek Mafia that eventually scared the lie itself. They linked me to ΟΥΚαδες*, who I not only did not know, but value-wise and ideologically we are in opposite worlds . They linked me to “Greek Mafia” bombs which is a place that makes me sick. They used two of my personal friendships with people who have died to set up a script that would give medals to the Ministry of Civil Protection and feed lies to willing journalists. Their lie was exposed, but no one will talk about it.
During my time in prison I had developed friendships with various people who had experienced the conditions of incarceration with me. These friendships did not mean professional cooperation or common goals in our further life. The truth is simple and clear. The friendship I had with certain people, who have now been dead for some time, had nothing to do with either their professional or any other occupations. Their own business, choices, friendships and enmities were their own business, not mine. The media has dubbed me as a man who owned, not one but more than one, petrol stations in partnership with other people. A lie that never and nowhere has the slightest grain of truth and I challenge the police or the media who are so fond of repeating it to report the slightest evidence to back it up. Where I operate professionally is fully known to the counter-terrorism and all the other police agencies that have been watching me for years at my place of work. Then, in addition to being potentially involved in fuel smuggling schemes, they are now trying to make their stories even more inflated by trying to implicate me in cases involving cigarette smuggling and clashes between people involved in it… Another outright lie and I challenge the police and the media who are now reproducing it to find the slightest evidence that shows any connection to anything like this. The police who have had me under constant “surveillance” since my release if there was the slightest basis in these fictions you can be sure that they would have already set up an inflated case to sell another one of their “successes”. They even went so far as to report that they are even considering my involvement in blowing up the Aegina water pipeline, far surpassing previous stages of ridiculousness.
My life path was and is different. I had and have no connection with these places and if the media that are so fond of reproducing it, let them say a single fact, apart from the existence of certain friendships, which, after all, I have never hidden. If I ever went to jail for something I actually did (not like now that is the product of a frame-up) it would be for political reasons and never for criminal and “para” capitalist reasons.
My case was eventually separated from the ΟΥΚαδες and I ended up being tried by a single judge misdemeanor court for a simple misdemeanor. Continue reading “Greece: Two texts from the recently imprisoned comrade & former member of Conspiracy of Cells of Fire Christos Tsakalos EN/ES [Updated]”
Carlo Carrà, The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli, 1910-1911 (oil on canvas, 198.7×259.1 cm, currently at the Museum of Modern Art, New York).
