US envoy again denounces prospect of terrorist’s release

Greek PM Tsipras dismissed the notion that his government’s law was “tailor-made” to release Xiros in favor of home remand

 

The US ambassador to Greece on Wednesday again condemned the prospect of a man convicted of assassinating US diplomats and military staff being conditionally released from a Greek prison – a “diplomatic thorn” that abruptly emerged following the SYRIZA government’s insistence on passing a relevant law.

US Amb. David Pearce again Tweeted that notorious “November 17” urban terrorist Savvas Xiros should not be released from prison. Xiros is possibly eligible for release due to health reasons, given that he was severely injured in 2002 when a … bomb he was planting exploded prematurely. Since then he’s also been afflicted with MS and kidney failure in jail, the government says.

“Xiros should not set a foot out of prison before his sentences are served,” was the Tweet by Pearce, which came after a Tweet by FT Brussels bureau chief Peter Spiegel on the Xiros affair, complete with a link of a televised comment by Greek PM Alexis Tsipras explaining the law.

Spiegel added a Twitter mention of Pearce.

During a late-to-early-morning television interview on Monday, Tsipras dismissed the notion that his government’s law was “tailor-made” to release Xiros in favor of home remand. He countered that the law entails a “humanitarian dimension” and aims to ease prison overcrowding.

The law has angered Washington and the State Department’s officialdom.

So far, the image of Xiros exiting the prison’s gates or shown inside his home hasn’t been splashed across television screens and the Internet because the erstwhile church mural painter and unrepentant ultra-Marxist terrorist supposedly refuses to wear an ankle monitor.