A top government official travelling to Brussels with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras referred to the US government’s critical stance on the prospect of Savvas Xiros’ prison release. The official, who basically expressed the Prime Minister’s views, stated that the US administration’s reactions were over the top, and unexpected.

“We expected criticism over the Russian pipeline deal, but not over the Xiros release,” he said, adding: “The Americans will see that we are not more lenient vis-a-vis terrorism”.

Xiros is a convicted “November 17” urban terrorist serving a life sentence.

Either the two-month-old leftist radical government in Athens is right that Washington … overreacted, or, it failed to predict the exact reaction that the United States would exhibit to news that a convicted killer of its diplomats and military personnel would be released from prison in favor of … home custody.

Maziotis ‘thanks’ to State Dept.

Meanwhile, jailed urban terrorist Nikos Maziotis took particular … pleasure with a decision by the US State Department this week to include him in a list of international terrorists compiled by the US bureau.

“It is a great honor that you have put me on the black list,” the Revolutionary Struggle militant wrote. His words were posted on a well-known website often preferred by Greece’s self-styled anarchists, anti-state / anti-establishment and ultra-Marxist guerrillas – violent or otherwise.

Maziotis, whose group once fired an RPG at the US embassy in Athens, is currently held at a (formerly maximum security) prison near the central Greece town of Domokos.