| http://www.ekathimerini.com/news/content.asp?aid=86900
Nov. 17 denies Michaloliakos attack Five months after conservative MP Vassilis Michaloliakos was wounded slightly during a bomb attack, the November 17 terrorist group denied any implication in the Piraeus blast, dumping the blame on the US secret services. In an 11-page declaration published in yesterday's Eleftherotypia daily, the group's staple vehicle for its statements, November 17 said the blast was a provocation intended to stampede the government into voting through a controversial law on fighting terrorism and organized crime. The US State Department dismissed this claim. "It is absolutely and entirely absurd," spokesman Richard Boucher said. Michaloliakos, 49, declined to comment on the declaration, saying he would not "legitimize terrorists by entering into a dialogue with them." And he refused to respond to journalists' questions on whether anybody else would have an incentive to try to kill him. Police were understood to be investigating the possibility of the blast being linked with common criminal groups. Government spokesman Dimitris Reppas echoed that "it is not possible for us to open any form of dialogue with a terrorist organization." November 17 said it had not taken earlier action to dissociate itself from the Michaloliakos bombing to hinder the media from presenting it as "a desperate attempt to prevent the law on terrorism from being passed." It added that it had initially maintained "a tiny reservation regarding the possibility of some other left-wing group having planted the bomb." |
