Today, we remember the Greek anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, better known by his stage name “Killah-P,” who was murdered ten years ago today by members of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn. He was stabbed twice in the heart when watching a football match with his partner and friends at a cafe in Keratsini. While still conscious, Fyssas said that Giorgos Roupakias, who worked in the cafeteria at the Golden Dawn offices, had stabbed him.
An investigation indicated that Golden Dawn members and officials organized his murder. Similarly, police special unit DIAS on the scene stood back and watched the neo-Nazi killer stab Fyassas. Despite being arrested following the murder, Roupakias was released from pre-trial custody in 2016 despite admitting to a judge that he had killed Fyssas.
Following Fyssas’ murder, massive protests forced the Greek judiciary to launch a case against the Golden Dawn party, the third largest party in parliament following the January 2015 election. In 2020, 68 defendants were subsequently convicted of running a criminal organization following a five-year trial. Roupakias was also finally convicted for Fyssas’s murder, receiving a life sentence.
Outside the courthouse, 20,000 people gathered to hear the verdict. The case was the largest trial of a Nazi organization since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi officials in 1945-46. However, the obvious collaboration between the police and the fascists went unpunished.