Post by Taxigirl on Dec 8, 2003 9:53:33 GMT
Greek terrorists have been convicted over the murder a British diplomat.
November 17 group leader Alexandros Giotopoulos, 59, was found guilty of planning the murder of Brigadier Stephen Saunders in Athens June 2000.
And the left-wing terror group's main assassin, Dimitris Koufodinas, was convicted of shooting him dead.
The two men are on trial with 17 other alleged members for a string of bombings, robberies and many other murders carried out since 1975.
Savas Xiros is also charged with the brigadier's murder and Mr Koufodinas' wife Angeliki Sotiropoulou is also charged as an accomplice.
The trial has lasted nine months and attracted huge media attention in the country.
Brig Saunders, from Dorset, left behind a widow, Heather, and daughters, Nicola, 16, and Catherine, 15.
Mrs Saunders told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the guilty verdicts were "what we hoped for".
"Nobody really wins in this situation - but if they are taken off the streets for a while and given a piece of their own medicine, albeit in no comparison to what we have suffered, then that is perhaps justice."
But Mrs Saunders added: "We will never get proper justice.
"Those people that have been killed will never come back," she said.
"They killed 23 people - but it is 23 widows, there's goodness knows how many children, how many parents. They will all carry this scar for the rest of their lives."
Mrs Saunders was awarded an OBE for her relentless campaign to find her husband's killers
And she even filed a civil action allowing her to take part in the trial of the 19 suspected group members.
Mrs Saunders told Today: "I was just so angry that somebody had killed my husband, a completely innocent man.
"I just felt that someone had to speak out."
Bomb breakthrough
Greek public figures and businessmen are also thought to have been among November 17's victims.
Police made little progress in their search for the group until last year, when a bomb being carried by Mr Xiros exploded prematurely leaving him badly injured and in the hands of the authorities.
Within months 19 suspected members of the group had been held and charged and Greek police had found the .45 calibre pistol allegedly used to kill Brig Saunders.
Nineteen alleged members of November 17 are on trial
The 52-year-old defence attache was shot four times in the chest by two men on a motorcycle who drove up alongside his unmarked car in a traffic jam.
November 17, a Marxist and anti-Western group, claimed responsibility for the shooting.
The group said the brigadier had been punished for his "instrumental role" in Nato's 78-day aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo conflict.
The Greek Government offered a reward for information about the killers and British intelligence and Scotland Yard were brought in to help Greek police track them down.