A closely watched trial against more than a dozen ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi) members – including its leader and several serving MPs – begins on Monday.

The most serious charge, beyond homicide and attempted homicide, involves an indictment for establishing and being a member of a criminal organization, something that investigating magistrates and prosecutors maintain that GD actually comprises in the form of a violent neo-Nazi network.

The gravity of the case, the voluminous indictment and sheer number of defendants, including elected office-holders, means it will be tried by a three-justice panel of appellate-level judges.
The incident that essentially jump-started police and judicial investigations and led to the indictments and several pre-trial jail remands, was the murder of working-class rapper and shipyard worker Pavlos Fyssas in September 2013.

An organized GD cadre in the area where the stabbing death took place — the Nikea district — has been charged with intentional homicide.

The trial begins on a date, April 20, when notorious neo-Nazi organizations around the world hold “events” in remembrance of Adolf Hitler’s birthday.

The trial is expected to take a year to complete and will be heard inside a specially built courtroom in the women’s section of Korydallos prison, a gritty working class district near the port of Piraeus.