Four terror suspects to prosecutor

Four young men arrested by the counter-terrorism squad were led before a public prosecutor on Friday. There were outstanding arrest warrants against all four suspects issued by Thessaloniki’s 5th examining magistrate for the bomb attack on a Public Power Corporation (PPC) building last October.

All four were arrested on Thursday night as part of an ongoing investigation into the “Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire” terrorist group. They initially refused to state their names or have their fingerprints taken but police announced that they had been identified early on Friday morning.

The results of a ballistics report released later on Friday revealed that the 9mm pistol found in the two apartments on Thursday had not been used in any terrorist action. Police are continuing to investigate whether the weapon was used in any common criminal acts.

They also discovered that the two apartments in Vyronas and Tavros were leased by the suspects at the end of October using fake IDs, a few days after the warrants issued against them in Thessaloniki. Both apartments were on a short lease that would have expired in February, while the suspects were posing as students.

Ballistics report on the Kalashnikov rifle are still pending, as is the investigation of PC hard-drives and USB storage devices found in the Vyronas apartment. Counter-terrorism officers are looking into the possibility that the four may have been preparing to take part in a terrorist strike before the trial of suspected “Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire” members on Monday.