A Volos prosecutor has recommended to the competent Volos Lower Court Judicial Council that Dimitris Koufodonis, the top gun of the now defunct November 17 terrorist organisation who is serving 11 life sentences for as many murders, not be granted his regular furlough on the grounds that he has been recently charged (along with other inmates) with the felony of encouraging a prison uprising in another building.
The move comes after the Supreme Court (Areios Pagos) issued a ruling on 23 May rescinding a decision of the competent Judicial Council of Volos which had rejected Koufodinas’ application for his seventh consecutive furlough, thereby throwing the case back to the Volos Judicial Council.
The day of the Supreme Court ruling Koufodinas in the ICU of a Volos hospital suspended a three-week long hunger strike that he had conducted in order to protest the rejection of the furlough request.
This time the Volos prosecutor refused to even enter the substance of the circumstances surrounding Koufodinas’ petition due to the fresh charges that he had encouraged a prison revolt in another building of the prison complex simply by signing a petition drafted by other inmates in solidarity with another hunger striker.
The Supreme Court’s Sixth Criminal Division on 23 May had adopted the recommendation of Supreme Court Prosecutor Xeni Dimitriou that the Volos Lower Court Judicial Council’s ruling against the furlough be rescinded.
Dimitriou had expressed the view that Koufodinas’ meets the formal preconditions for receiving his regular furlough.