The trial of 6 people arrested in Thessaloniki during the demonstrations of the 21st of June 2003, against the EU Summit, was held today in the three-member Magistrate's court of Thessaloniki. All six of them were accused for the minor offence of (participating in a) revolt. Five of them were Greek; the sixth one, coming from Spain, named Carlos, had been initially accused for a criminal offence and detained. After a long hunger-strike he was imprisoned, and the Magistrate's Council changed the offences from criminal to minor ones.

According to the decision of the court, 5 out of 6 arrestees were found guilty. One was found innocent, since he had been beaten by the police and the policeman who arrested him was not clear while testifying. Three of them were found guilty for just participating in the revolt and were condemned to 10 months in prison, despite the proofs that were not extremely indicative, mainly based on the testimonies of the police officers. The Spanish was condemned in 2 years in prison, since he was found guilty for being active in the revolt and the sixth person was condemned in 2 years and 2 months in prison, because he was arrested possessing a baton, which is considered a weapon.

The 6 arrestees where arrested in June 21st, in different place and time each, and had separate advocates; but they had to be in trial altogether.

The good news is that all penalties are in a three-year suspension, since all arrestees had a clear police record. They will now make an Appeal, hoping that the Court of Appeals will pay more attention to the insufficiency of some proofs that were used against the arrestees.

The session started at 11.00 and reached a final decision at 16.00. After all accusation witnesses testified (most of them where police officers), it was interrupted for some time, since a jury had to be replaced, because her husband was the Magistrate who had issued a compurgative presentment for some other arrestees of that day.

The juries had an obvious worry to hurry up, since another 25 cases were scheduled for the same day. Finally, despite all of the cases were re-scheduled, there was a constant time pressure during the advocacy and even during the speech of the 6 lawyers, who had no more than 5 minutes to talk each and they were stressed with the phrase “your time is over”. It seemed that the juries didn’t want to pay attention to the advocacy arguments.

The advocates, apart from questioning the clues that the policemen presented, spent some effort to describe the situation in the centre of Thessaloniki, when the arrests took place. They focused on the difficulty that the policemen should have to recognize faces, the bad way that the policemen handled the riots (illegal use of chemicals), based on an official document from a State Legal Service for the Citizens. In many cases (especially for Carlos) there was the opinion that the policemen acted under the pressure to show off, by having some arrests.

Outside the court there was a gathering by dozens of the arrestees’ comrades, who came early in order to support; some of them were able to attend the trial. The Athens News Agency reports that the Spanish Consul in Thessaloniki was also in the audience. The Attorney had asked “severe” security measures to be taken, so people who entered the building and the room had to be taken under a security control; they also didn’t allow more people than the seats available in the room. There were also a lot of policemen and undercovered ones; the solidarity demonstrators were forced to stay in the one side of the entrance of the building.