The Greek Junta Trials were the trial

Trial

A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard.It may refer to:*Trial , the presentation of information in a formal setting, usually a court...

s involving members of the military junta that ruled Greece from 21 April 1967 to 23 July 1974. These trials involved the instigators of the coup as well as other junta members of various ranks who took part in the events of the Athens Polytechnic uprising

Athens Polytechnic uprising

The Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta, anti-US and anti-imperialist revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November...

 and in the torture of citizens.

The military coup leaders were formally arrested during the metapolitefsi

Metapolitefsi

The Metapolitefsi was a period in Greek history after the fall of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 that includes the transitional period from the fall of the dictatorship to the Greek legislative elections of 1974 and the democratic period immediately after these elections.The long...

period that followed the junta, and in early August 1975 the government of Konstantinos Karamanlis brought charges of high treason

High treason

High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...

 and mutiny

Mutiny

Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...

 against Georgios Papadopoulos and other co-conspirators

Conspiracy (political)

In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....

. The mass trial, described as "Greece's Nuremberg

Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....

" and known as "The Trial of the Instigators", was staged at the Korydallos Prison

Korydallos Prison

Korydallos Prison Complex is the main prison of Greece, housing both maximum-security men and women. It is located in Korydallos, Piraeus. Its most famous detainees are the November 17 terrorist members and Colonel Nikolaos Dertilis, the last surviving member of the military junta. Korydallos...

 amidst heavy security. The principal leaders of the 1967 coup, Georgios Papadopoulos, Stylianos Pattakos

Stylianos Pattakos

Stylianos Pattakos is a Greek military man who was one of the principals of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 that overthrew the government of Panagiotis Kanellopoulos in a coup d'état on April 21, 1967....

 and Nikolaos Makarezos

Nikolaos Makarezos

Nikolaos Makarezos was a Greek Army officer and one of the masterminds of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974.- Early life and career :He was born in 1919 in the village of Gravia, in the prefecture of Phocis...

, were sentenced to death for high treason, following the trial. Shortly after the sentences were pronounced, they were commuted to life imprisonment

Life imprisonment

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

 by the Karamanlis government. The trial of the instigators was followed by a second trial which investigated the events surrounding the Athens Polytechnic uprising

Athens Polytechnic uprising

The Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta, anti-US and anti-imperialist revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November...

 known as "The Trial of the Polytechnic" and, finally, a series of trials involving incidents of torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

 known in Greece as "The Trials of the Torturers".

Historical background

After the fall of the junta in July 1974, as the country entered the period of the metapolitefsi

Metapolitefsi

The Metapolitefsi was a period in Greek history after the fall of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974 that includes the transitional period from the fall of the dictatorship to the Greek legislative elections of 1974 and the democratic period immediately after these elections.The long...

and before the legislative elections

Greek legislative election, 1974

The first free elections since 1964 and after the end of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 took place in Greece on November 17, 1974 during the metapolitefsi....

 in November of the same year, the transitional government headed by Konstantinos Karamanlis came under growing criticism from the opposition, including Georgios Mavros, the leader of the Center Union-New Forces (the main opposition party at the time), about being too lenient to the members of the recently deposed military junta.

Mavros had demanded the arrest of the junta principals as a condition for cleaning up the political life of the country. At the time he declared that as soon as the Parliament

Hellenic Parliament

The Hellenic Parliament , also the Parliament of the Hellenes, is the Parliament of Greece, located in the Parliament House , overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece....

 was convened after the 1974 elections, he would propose legislation

Legislation

Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...

 to annul any automatic immunity laws which the junta might have enacted to protect its members.

The newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

s further demanded an investigation into the role of Brigadier Ioannidis during the crushing of the Polytechnic uprising, which the press called a "massacre". Ioannidis was the shadowy leader of the junta's final stage who had been described as the invisible dictator in the press.

Karamanlis' government responded to these demands and ordered the junta principals Georgios Papadopoulos, Stylianos Pattakos, Nikolaos Makarezos, Ioannis Ladas and Michael Roufogalis arrested.

In addition, Georgios Papadopoulos, Dimitrios Ioannidis, Michael Roufogalis, Nikolaos Dertilis, Vassilios Bouklakos and Elias Tsiaouris or Tsapouris (also Tsiaparas), who were also responsible of the Polytechnic events were prohibited from leaving the country, as rumours were circulating that they were planning to escape abroad.

On 24 October 1974, Georgios Papadopoulos, Stylianos Pattakos, Nikolaos Makarezos, Ioannis Ladas and Michael Roufogalis were arrested and charged with conspiring

Conspiracy (political)

In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of persons united in the goal of usurping or overthrowing an established political power. Typically, the final goal is to gain power through a revolutionary coup d'état or through assassination....

 again. Subsequently they were sent to the island of Kea

Kea (island)

Kea , also known as Gia or Tzia , Zea, and, in Antiquity, Keos , is an island of the Cyclades archipelago, in the Aegean Sea, in Greece. Kea is part of the Kea-Kythnos peripheral unit. Its capital, Ioulis, is inland at a high altitude and is considered quite picturesque...

.

Ioannidis, was not arrested at that time, with the official explanation that he did not take part in the conspiracy of the Papadopoulos group. However the newspapers, such as To Vima

To Vima

To Vima is a Greek daily newspaper first published in 1922 by Dimitris Lambrakis, the father of Christos Lambrakis. It is owned by Lambrakis Press Group, a group which also publishes the newspaper Ta Nea, amongst others in its fold of publications...

, alleged, citing reliable sources, that Ioannidis had disappeared and could not be found.

Immediately after the group of five was exiled

Internal Exile

Internal Exile was Fish's second solo album after leaving Marillion in 1988. The album, released 28 October 1991, was inspired by the singer's past, his own personal problems and his troubled experiences with his previous record label EMI.The album's music reflects Fish's indulgence in the vast...

 to Kea, the opposition demanded to know the details of the actions of Papadopoulos and his co-conspirators prior to their arrest, while the government denied rumours of pro-junta manoeuvres among the military.

During his stay in Kea, Papadopoulos seemed confident that he and the members of his junta would be granted amnesty

Amnesty

Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...

 and they would eventually run for office and get elected

Election

An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...

. However, following a three month stay on the island, in February 1975, Papadopoulos and the other four junta principals were transported by a torpedo boat

Torpedo boat

A torpedo boat is a relatively small and fast naval vessel designed to carry torpedoes into battle. The first designs rammed enemy ships with explosive spar torpedoes, and later designs launched self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes. They were created to counter battleships and other large, slow and...

 to the port of Piraeus

Piraeus

Piraeus is a city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens Urban Area, 12 km southwest from its city center , and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf....

 on their way to Korydallos prison. Ioannidis, having been arrested on 14 January 1975, was already at the jail when Papadopoulos and his cohorts arrived there.

Trial of the instigators of the 21 April 1967 coup

On 28 July 1975, the trial of the instigators of the coup commenced with Ioannis Deyannis as the presiding judge; Deyannis had been appointed to the high court of Areios Pagos

Court of Cassation (Greece)

The Court of Cassation is the Supreme Court of Greece for civil and criminal law. The Court of Cassation's decisions are irrevocable. If the Court of Cassation concludes that a lower court violated the law or the principles of the procedure, then it can order the rehearing of the case by the lower...

during the junta years. The mandate of the trial was to examine the events surrounding the 21 April 1967 coup, for which Papadopoulos and over twenty other co-defendants were charged with acts of high treason

High treason

High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...

 and mutiny

Mutiny

Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...

. Security surrounding the trial was heavy: one thousand soldiers armed with submachine gun

Submachine gun

A submachine gun is an automatic carbine, designed to fire pistol cartridges. It combines the automatic fire of a machine gun with the cartridge of a pistol. The submachine gun was invented during World War I , but the apex of its use was during World War II when millions of the weapon type were...

s were guarding the jail's perimeter, and the roads leading to the jail were patrolled by tank

Tank

A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...

s.

Despite these developments, Papadopoulos expressed his confidence to reporters that he would not remain incarcerated for long. He also assumed full responsibility for the April coup but refused to defend himself. Following Papadopoulos' lead, Stylianos Pattakos, Nikolaos Makarezos and other junta members announced that they would not participate in the trial. Dimitrios Ioannidis announced that the trial was "unfortunately not interesting".

The defence announced that the reason their clients were not participating was that the Karamanlis government had prejudiced the outcome of the trial by declaring the 1967 coup a criminal offense. The lawyers of sixteen of the defendant

Defendant

A defendant or defender is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff or pursuer in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute...

s walked out of the courtroom

Courtroom

A courtroom is the actual enclosed space in which a judge regularly holds court.The schedule of official court proceedings is called a docket; the term is also synonymous with a court's caseload as a whole.-Courtroom design:-United States:...

 on the first day of the proceedings, declaring that they could not carry out their duties under a climate of terror

State terrorism

State terrorism may refer to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against a foreign state or people. It can also refer to acts of violence by a state against its own people.-Definition:...

 and violence

Violence

Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...

, to which the presiding judge Ioannis Deyannis replied: "Let all those who wish to leave—leave!".
Although there was an agreement between the defendants that they would keep silent during the trial and would not issue any statements, Papadopoulos broke his silence and declared to the Court that: "I am the leader of the Revolution and I am responsible for everything". Pattakos, Makarezos and the rest of the junta members were surprised to hear Papadopoulos' statement because they believed they had an agreement that they would not politicize the trial based on their belief that they had nothing to gain. In their view their support among the people and in the army was non-existent.

The charge of mutiny was contested because even though the colonels had in fact seized power illegally, they did so with the approval of their superior officer Lieutenant General

Lieutenant General

Lieutenant General is a military rank used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages where the title of Lieutenant General was held by the second in command on the battlefield, who was normally subordinate to a Captain General....

 Grigorios Spandidakis

Grigorios Spandidakis

Grigorios Spandidakis was a Greek Army officer who rose to the rank of Lieutenant General and the post of Chief of the Hellenic Army General Staff in 1965–1967. From this position, he was instrumental in the military preparations that resulted in the coup d'état of 21 April 1967 and the...

, who even joined the coup. Further Karamanlis himself, by accepting the invitation of junta-appointed President Phaedon Gizikis

Phaedon Gizikis

Phaedon Gizikis was a Greek Army officer and President of Greece from 1973 to 1974.Born on 16 June 1917, in Volos, Greece, Phaedon Gizikis was a career Greek army officer...

 to return to Greece, conferred a measure of legitimacy to the junta. In addition it was Gizikis who swore-in Karamanlis as Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Greece

The Prime Minister of Greece , officially the Prime Minister of the Hellenic Republic , is the head of government of the Hellenic Republic and the leader of the Greek cabinet. The current interim Prime Minister is Lucas Papademos, a former Vice President of the European Central Bank, following...

.

During the trial, Spandidakis, Zoitakis

Georgios Zoitakis

Georgios Zoitakis was a Greek Army general and regent of Greece from 13 December 1967 to 21 March 1972, during the period of the military regime of the Colonels.- Life :...

 and Stamatelopoulos differentiated their position from that of the other junta members. This divergence from the common defence line led Papadopoulos to strongly chastise one of his defence lawyers for trying to question one of Zoitakis' witnesses. He is reported as exclaiming: "He is not one of our witnesses. Do not ask him [any questions]".

Panagiotis Kanellopoulos

Panagiotis Kanellopoulos

Panagiotis Kanellopoulos or Panayotis Kanellopoulos was a distinguished Greek politician and Prime Minister of Greece. He was the Prime Minister of Greece deposed by the Greek military junta of 1967-1974....

, the last legitimate Prime Minister of Greece prior to the coup, acting as witness for the prosecution, testified how he was arrested by machine-gun

Machine gun

A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....

 toting soldiers and transported to the palace to meet King Constantine

Constantine II of Greece

|align=right|Constantine II was King of Greece from 1964 until the abolition of the monarchy in 1973, the sixth and last monarch of the Greek Royal Family....

. He added that during the meeting he urged the king to use his status as commander-in-chief

Commander-in-Chief

A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...

 of the Greek military

Military of Greece

The armed forces of Greece consist of:* The Hellenic National Defense General Staff* The Hellenic Army* The Hellenic Navy* The Hellenic Air ForceThe civilian authority for the Greek military is the Ministry of National Defense....

 to order loyal officers to crush the coup. He stated that Constantine refused to do so because he feared bloodshed.

Kanellopoulos also stated at the trial that, against his advice, King Constantine swore-in the government of the colonels, an action which had helped legitimise their rule. Kanellopoulos' testimony had the effect of undermining the charge of mutiny. Kanellopoulos, during his testimony, also accepted his responsibility "before history" for not preempting the coup. He testified that there was no indication at all that the colonels were plotting "behind the backs" of the highest echelons of the army leadership.

Papadopoulos refused to testify and only declared: "I shall answer only to history and to the Greek people"; to which presiding justice Deyannis retorted: "Do you think history is absent from this courtroom?" Papadopoulos did not respond.

The question of the involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

 (CIA) in the coup, a widely-held belief in Greece, was not answered at the trial. Deyannis forbade all discussion on the subject with the remark that the trial was only confined to discovering the facts involved on the day the coup occurred. The only testimony about CIA involvement was given by Andreas Papandreou

Andreas Papandreou

Andreas G. Papandreou ; 5 February 1919 – 23 June 1996) was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a dominant figure in Greek politics. The son of Georgios Papandreou, Andreas was a Harvard-trained academic...

, who insisted that the colonels worked closely with the CIA.

Verdict

The trial of the instigators ended on 23 August 1975. Papadopoulos, Nikolaos Makarezos and Stylianos Pattakos were sentenced to death by firing squad, while Dimitrios loannides received a life sentence. Seven others were sentenced to terms ranging from five to 20 years and two were acquitted.

This is the detailed table of the main sentences:

Junta member	Sentence
Georgios Papadopoulos, Stylianos Pattakos	Dishonourable discharge, Death Death Sentence Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...
Nikolaos Makarezos	Death
Grigorios Spandidakis, Antonios Lefkas, Nikolaos Dertilis, Dimitrios Ioannidis, Michael Balopoulos, Georgios Konstantopoulos, Theodoros Theophilogiannakos	Dishonourable discharge, Life Life imprisonment Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
Georgios Zoitakis	Dishonourable discharge, Life
Ioannis Ladas, Konstantinos Papadopoulos, Michael Roufogalis, Dimitrios Stamatelopoulos, Stephanos Karaberis	Life
Odysseas Aggelis	Dishonourable discharge, 20 years
Petros Kotselis, Nikolaos Gantonas, Konstantinos Karydas, Evangelos Tsakas	20 years
Konstantinos Aslanidis, Alexandros Hadjipetros	Not guilty

The death sentences were later commuted to life incarceration by the Karamanlis government.

On 28 August 1975 Konstantinos Karamanlis declared: "When we say life [sentence], we mean life [sentence]", meaning that the commutation of the sentences from death to life imprisonment would not be followed by further reductions.

Trial of the Polytechnic

On 16 October 1975, at 9 a.m., the second trial, investigating the events surrounding the Athens Polytechnic uprising

Athens Polytechnic uprising

The Athens Polytechnic uprising in 1973 was a massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974. The uprising began on November 14, 1973, escalated to an open anti-junta, anti-US and anti-imperialist revolt and ended in bloodshed in the early morning of November...

  started in the same courtroom as the first trial, and lasted a total of fifty-seven days. There were thirty-three indicted including Papadopoulos, Ioannidis, M. Roufogalis, Vassilios Bouklakos, Elias Tsiaouris or Tsiaparas and Nikos Dertilis. Papadopoulos, Ioannidis, Roufogalis and Nikos Dertilis were already convicted and serving their sentences from the first trial.

The only defendant not present at the Polytechnic trial was Elias Tsiaouris or Tsiaparas, accused of murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

, who had escaped custody because he was in hiding. There were a total of 237 witnesses for the prosecution and the defence and about 50 lawyers.

The preliminary investigation for the events of the Polytechnic was carried out by prosecutor Dimitrios Tsevas, who submitted the results of his investigation to the office of the prosecutor general on 14 October 1974. In his report, Tsevas determined that Ioannidis and his deputy Roufogalis were on the scene during the events and directed their men with the purpose to create, through shootings and violence, conditions which would benefit Ioannidis' planned coup against Papadopoulos.

Ioannidis and Papadopoulos, even though they were sitting close to each other, never once exchanged a look. During the second trial a documentary film was shown, shot by Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

s, which showed the events surrounding the three day event centering around Polytechnic School

National Technical University of Athens

The National Technical University of Athens , sometimes simply known as Athens Polytechnic, is among the oldest and most prestigious higher education institutions of Greece....

 from the time the students entered to the crushing of the Polytechnic gates by the tanks. During the projection, Papadopoulos did not pay attention to the film, mostly looking down, while Ioannidis was watching the film, reportedly unperturbed.

Antonis Agritelis, driver of Dertils' jeep

Jeep

Jeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler . The first Willys Jeeps were produced in 1941 with the first civilian models in 1945, making it the oldest off-road vehicle and sport utility vehicle brand. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover which is the second...

, testified that he saw Dertilis execute a youth on Patission Avenue

Patission Avenue

Patission Street is one of the major streets in central Athens, Greece. Though it is known as Patission, its name was changed to 28 October Street, commemorating the day in 1940 that the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas refused the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's ultimatum that Greece submit to...

. According to Agritelis' testimony, after the execution, Dertilis reentered the jeep and boasted about his marksmanship. Dertilis disputed Agritelis' testimony but the Court convicted him partly based on this testimony.

Pattakos testified that he called Ioannidis to his office in September 1973 because of rumours that he was planning the overthrow of the Papadopoulos regime. Ioannidis denied the rumours and actually reassured Pattakos, on his "military honour", that he was a supporter of the Constitution and of Papadopoulos' reforms. Pattakos also mentioned that he knew very well that in the afternoon of 24 November 1973 Ioannidis had been called by Papadopoulos himself and, with Makarezos present, he again vehemently denied any rumours about planning a coup. Pattakos added that a few hours after that meeting, around 3:30 a.m. the next day, the tanks appeared in the streets of Athens and Phaedon Gizikis

Phaedon Gizikis

Phaedon Gizikis was a Greek Army officer and President of Greece from 1973 to 1974.Born on 16 June 1917, in Volos, Greece, Phaedon Gizikis was a career Greek army officer...

 was sworn early that morning as figurehead President of the Republic.

On the second day of the trial, Papadopoulos' defence lawyers Karagiannopoulos, Papaspyrou and Steiropoulos raised the objection that the court did not have jurisdictional authority over their client regarding the events of the Polytechnic, because he had Presidential immunity

Sovereign immunity

Sovereign immunity, or crown immunity, is a legal doctrine by which the sovereign or state cannot commit a legal wrong and is immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution....

 as President of Greece

President of Greece

The President of the Hellenic Republic , colloquially referred to in English as the President of Greece, is the head of state of Greece. The office of the President of the Republic was established after the Greek republic referendum, 1974 and formally by the Constitution of Greece in 1975. The...

 during the time of the events and demanded an immediate ruling

Court order

A court order is an official proclamation by a judge that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out of certain steps by one or more parties to a case...

 from the court. The court went immediately in recess for further deliberations. Once the proceedings resumed the Court announced its decision. The court found that Papadopoulos was not immune from prosecution as President of the Republic at the time of the events because the 21 April 1967 coup initiated violence against the Greek State and usurped the power and legal authority of the people and therefore all subsequent governments of the junta were deemed by the court to be products of violence. Consequently the Court found that Papadopoulos was not a legitimate President of the Republic at the time, and as such not immune from prosecution.

The full, unanimous, decision of the Court, rejecting Papadopoulos' motion for immunity, stated the following:

The mutinous movement of 21 April 1967, the action of a group of officers and the resulting situation until 23 July [1974] constituted a coup d'état

Coup d'état

A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

, through which it was intended to usurp the authority and the sovereign rights of the people. The consequent governments were governments of violence. Therefore it is clearly concluded that anyone who exercised duties of governmental authority under any office including that of the head of state, did not in reality exercise legal authority and consequently they are not protected for their actions during the exercise of such authority under the regulations which define immunity. Accordingly and the standing as accused Georgios Papadopoulos, having exercised duties as President of the Republic during the time the actions were carried out as are attributed to him by the indictment, he was not the legitimate President of the Republic and therefore he is not protected under the sections of immunity.

Following the ruling about immunity, Ioannidis' lawyer Giorgos Alfantakis made a motion to split and postpone the trial on the grounds that the indictment did not have a complete rationale: although it was mentioned in the order that Ioannidis encouraged and persuaded unit commanders of the security forces to act in a criminal fashion during the suppression of the uprising, the names of the commanders were not mentioned in the indictment. The court rejected the motion on the grounds that it could not annul the indictment.

Verdict

On 31 December 1975, the five-member court in Athens convicted 20 of the 32 accused and held Ioannidis as the only person morally responsible for the events.

The main sentences are shown in the following table:

Junta member	Sentence
Dimitrios Ioannidis	Seven Life sentences
Georgios Papadopoulos	25 years
Barnabas	Three Life sentences
Nikolaos Dertilis	Life
Zagorianakos	25 years
Mavroidis	25 years
Karayannis	25 years
Lymberis	25 years

Trials of the torturers

In addition to the two civil trials of the instigators and the Polytechnic events, there were another six trials, which concerned the use of torture by the regime . Two of the trials involved the court martial of members of the EAT/ESA

Greek Military Police

The Greek Military Police , generally known in English by the acronym ESA was the military police branch of the Greek Army in the years 1951-1974.. It developed into a powerful paramilitary organization and a stronghold of right-wing, conservative Army officers....

 military police. The first trial started 7 August 1975 at the Athens Permanent Court
Martial, and the second trial on 13 October 1975, with the verdict announced on 9 December 1975. In total, the defendants totalled 18 officers and 14 soldiers of the non commissioned rank who all faced charges arising from using torture during interrogations. The second trial investigated torture allegations centering on Bogiati jail and in army units located in the Attica Prefecture

Attica Prefecture

Attica Prefecture was a prefecture of Greece, established from the Attica and Boeotia Prefecture in 1899. From 1971, it consisted of the following prefectural-level administrations :# Athens# East Attica# Piraeus# West Attica...

. These trials were followed by four additional trials involving allegations of torture concerning members of the security forces and the police. The last of the torture trials started in November 1976. Overall there were between one hundred to four hundred torturers' trials. The number is uncertain because detailed centralised records of the number of the trials were not kept.

The charges during the first ESA torturers' trial were:
Each defendant was charged to a varying degree but the only officer to plead guilty to all of the charges was sergeant

Sergeant

Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....

 Michail Petrou, a former guard at the Athens headquarters of ESA, who returned to Greece from abroad to be tried.

A problem for the prosecution was the theft

Theft

In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...

 and destruction of the ESA files, which was described as "wholesale". These files were never recovered and were not used in any of the trials. In fact, documents which were initially exhibited in court by senior ESA officers later vanished without ever being found.

During the EAT/ESA trials, Theodoros Theophilogiannakos pleaded with the army leadership to not convict any of the accused lower-rank EAT/ESA personnel. His rationale was that these convictions would encourage the newly legalised Communist Party

Communist Party of Greece

Founded in 1918, the Communist Party of Greece , better known by its acronym, ΚΚΕ , is the oldest party on the Greek political scene.- Foundation :...

 to threaten EAT/ESA men with punishment in case the soldiers executed legally dubious orders. This would demoralize the men and make them second-guess the legality of each order issued to them. The soldiers would then disobey any order issued by their commanders, when in doubt as to the legitimacy of that order. Refusing to obey an order would be illegal from the standpoint of the army and would shake the discipline of the military, in Theophilogiannakos' view. He went on to state: "Sentence us, the commanding officers, to death if you like. All that matters is to save the State".

The prosecutor told the Court about Theophilogiannakos:

Guided by a blind anti-communism

Anti-communism

Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

, he attributed even the slightest opposition to the dictatorial regime to the "Communist finger"

During the second trial Theophilogiannakos asked the court to disallow testimony from Kostas Kappos

Kostas Kappos

Kostas Kappos was an important Greek communist.During the military junta he was arrested and sent to Lakki in Leros, where he was tortured. He was set free in 1971. In 1972 he became a member of the Office of the Central Secretariat of the Communist Youth of Greece, and in 1973 a member of the...

, a Communist member of Parliament, on the grounds that he was an atheist. Spanos, instead of giving testimony, declared that the "Revolution" was betrayed like Cyprus

Turkish invasion of Cyprus

The Turkish invasion of Cyprus, launched on 20 July 1974, was a Turkish military invasion in response to a Greek military junta backed coup in Cyprus...

, while Hadjizisis claimed that the ESA interrogators went through a worse ordeal than the actual interrogation

Interrogation

Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...

 victims.

One of the accused, Dimitrios Kofas, was notorious as the "orange juice doctor" because he prescribed orange juice as a panacea

Panacea (medicine)

The panacea , named after the Greek goddess of healing, Panacea, also known as panchrest, was supposed to be a remedy that would cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely...

 for any ailment, including those resulting from torture. In a patient case involving the Air Force officer Nikolaos Stapas

Nikolaos Stapas

Air Chief Marshal Nikolaos Stapas was a Greek Air Force officer and former Chief of the Air Force General Staff.He was born in 1937 in the village of Sykea in Laconia. He entered the Hellenic Air Force Academy and graduated in 1958. During the Greek military junta of 1967–1974, Stapas became...

, Kofas prescribed orange juice for hematuria

Hematuria

In medicine, hematuria, or haematuria, is the presence of red blood cells in the urine. It may be idiopathic and/or benign, or it can be a sign that there is a kidney stone or a tumor in the urinary tract , ranging from trivial to lethal...

 caused by severe torture. The doctor was convicted for eleven documented cases of dereliction of his medical duties

Dereliction of duty

Dereliction of duty is a specific offense under United States Code Title 10,892. Article 92 and applies to all branches of the US military. A service member who is derelict has willfully refused to perform his duties or has incapacitated himself in such a way that he cannot perform his duties...

.

The closing remarks of the prosecutor in one of the EAT/ESA trials were:

The torturers wanted to present EAT/ESA not as a place of torture but as a national reformatory. Modestly reserving to themselves infallibility of judgement, they have tried to follow in the footsteps of the Holy Inquisition

Inquisition

The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...

.

Verdict

Sentencing table for the two ESA trials:

EAT/ESA member	Sentence (first trial)	Sentence (second trial)
Hadjizisis	23 years	7 years
Theophilogiannakos	20 years	7 years
Spanos	20 years	5 years
Tsalas	15 years	4 years
Kofas (nicknamed "the orange juice doctor")	7 years	7 years

Incarceration

In prison the junta principals addressed each other using their former titles such as "Minister" and "President" and showed great deference to Papadopoulos. However, Papadopoulos did not readily socialise and preferred to dine alone. The then-warden of Korydallos prison, Yannis Papathanassiou later published the book Prison Diary: Korydallos 1975–79, where he described the amenities that the incarcerated junta members enjoyed, such as air conditioners, television set

Television set

A television set is a device that combines a tuner, display, and speakers for the purpose of viewing television. Television sets became a popular consumer product after the Second World War, using vacuum tubes and cathode ray tube displays...

s and tennis court

Tennis court

A tennis court is where the game of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the center. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles.-Dimensions:...

s.

Papathanassiou in his book describes how the Justice Ministry, under pressure from junta sympathisers, ordered these special arrangements for the prisoners. Papathanassiou also detailed his continuous vigilance trying to uncover escape plots. He also revealed how, through their lawyers, the prisoners got involved in the 1977 Greek legislative election

Greek legislative election, 1977

In the Greek legislative election, 1977, Prime Minister, Constantine Karamanlis, called for early elections. His party, New Democracy, suffered a significant loss of power, but, nevertheless, Karamanlis managed to secure an absolute majority in the Parliament. The big surprise was the success of...

 supporting a right wing party. The regular population of the prison became so incensed about the preferential treatment given to the junta members that they rioted.

A plan to grant amnesty

Amnesty

Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...

 to the junta principals by the Konstantinos Mitsotakis government in 1990 was cancelled after protest

Protest

A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...

s from conservatives, socialists

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

 and communists

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 alike.

Papadopoulos and seven other members of the junta were housed in the maximum security A-block. Papadopoulos resided on the second floor of the compound along with the other members of his regime, while Ioannides resided on the ground floor.

Although Pattakos and Makarezos were let out of jail early due to health reasons, Papadopoulos never asked for clemency and remained in jail until his death. He died in hospital on 27 June 1999, after being transferred from Korydallos.

During his incarceration, Ioannides was reported as reading military books and books about the CIA. Because of his involvement in Papadopoulos' overthrow he was accused by the right wing that he betrayed the oath he gave in the summer of 1971 in front of Papadopoulos and another twenty junta members that he would recognise Papadopoulos as the leader of the "Revolution

Glossary of the Greek military junta

The ideology of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974 was followed by the creation and/or use of special terms that were employed by the junta as propaganda tools and to transmit its message to the Greek people as well as influence their way of thinking and attack the anti-junta...

", i.e. the junta, and thus he was held responsible for the subsequent events, especially the regime's ultimate collapse. Consequently he did not come into contact with Papadopoulos and the other junta members around him and he spent most of his time alone in an isolated cell. Despite that, he sometimes arranged parties attended by members of the ESA

Greek Military Police

The Greek Military Police , generally known in English by the acronym ESA was the military police branch of the Greek Army in the years 1951-1974.. It developed into a powerful paramilitary organization and a stronghold of right-wing, conservative Army officers....

 military police, who resided on the third floor of the compound.

Ioannides and co-conspirator Nikos Dertilis never asked for a pardon. By the end of 2005, lawyers representing Ioannides and Dertilis petitioned the court for their release, but at the same time time Ioannides declared that he did not regret any of his actions. The Court of Justice in Piraeus declined his petition, based on his lack of remorse. In 2008, Ioannides was transferred to the General State Hospital of Nikaia

Nikaia, Attica

Nikaia is a suburb in the northern part of Piraeus, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Nikaia-Agios Ioannis Rentis, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit.-Geography:...

 from Korydallos due to illness. Ioannides died on 16 August 2010 from respiratory problems, having been taken to hospital the previous night. He remained incarcerated until his death.

Stylianos Pattakos, even in jail, exhibited continued devotion to Papadopoulos. It is reported the he enjoyed hearing religious music supplied to him by a monk and in his prison memoirs he describes how he enjoyed tending a small garden and a little pond with 21 goldfish

Goldfish

The goldfish is a freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae of order Cypriniformes. It was one of the earliest fish to be domesticated, and is one of the most commonly kept aquarium fish....

. The two things he mentions in his writings that he did not like was noise pollution

Noise pollution

Noise pollution is excessive, displeasing human, animal or machine-created environmental noise that disrupts the activity or balance of human or animal life...

 at the jail, which he describes as "torture", and that the shape of the pond and faucet combination looked like a hammer and sickle

Hammer and sickle

The hammer and sickle is a part of communist symbolism and its usage indicates an association with Communism, a Communist party, or a Communist state. It features a hammer and a sickle overlapping each other. The two tools are symbols of the industrial proletariat and the peasantry; placing them...

.

In another segment of his prison memoirs, Pattakos also mentions an incident involving General Odysseas Aggelis

Odysseas Aggelis

Odysseas Angelis was Vice President of Greece in 1973, during the "republican" period of the military junta of 1967-1974.Along with most of those involved in the coup of April 1967, he was an officer of the Greek Army. At the time he held the rank of Lieutenant General and was appointed Chief of...

 (the Chief of the Armed Forces under much of the junta), and a jail guard. According to Pattakos the jail guard had his radio volume high and Aggelis pleaded with the guard to lower it. The guard not only did not comply but raised the volume higher. Aggelis then asked Pattakos to intervene on his behalf and ask the "noble jail guard" again.

On 23 March 1987 Aggelis committed suicide in his cell, at the age of 75. Pattakos was released from jail in September 1990 due to "irreparable damage to his health".

Dertilis is the last remaining junta member currently in jail.

Legacy

The successful prosecution of the junta and the heavy sentences imposed on the junta principals sent a message to potential conspirators within the army ranks that the era of immunity from constitutional transgressions by the military was irreversibly over.

The EAT/ESA torture trials were acknowledged by Amnesty International

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

 as the first trials internationally, after the Nuremberg Trials

Nuremberg Trials

The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....

, to involve prosecution of torture. The EAT/ESA trials are also among the very few trials of torturers in human history and are referred to as the "Criminals' Trials" by Amnesty International. Because it is rare for a country to prosecute torturers, these trials have become the subject of scientific research and papers have been published based on their court proceedings.

In 1977, Amnesty International published a report about the first torturers' trial in Greece with the dual purpose of documenting the use of torture in a modern oppressive regime and using it as an example of prosecution of officials who torture, based on a conviction that the Greek experience can benefit the rest of the world.

Media

• The Trial of the Junta from IMDB film. Directed by T. Theodosopoulos, produced by Maggos Theodosopoulos, Music by G. Yiannoulatos and Songs by Alkestis Protopsalti.
• Prison Diary: Korydallos 1975-79 book. Yannis Papathanassiou
• The Trial, book. Ioannis Deyannis. Gnosi publications 1990.
• Diki ton vasaniston: EAT/ESA 1967-74, I (1982) (Trial of the torturers on IMDB)
• Book: The Trials of the Junta, 12 Volumes (Pericles Rodakis (publisher), The Trials of the Junta: A: The Trial of the Instigators, B: The Trial of the Polytechnic, C: The Trials of the Torturers) [Περικλής Ροδάκης (εκδ.), Οι Δίκες της Χούντας: Α: Η Δίκη των Πρωταιτίων, Β: Η Δίκη του Πολυτεχνείου, Γ: Οι Δίκες των Βασανιστών, 12 τόμοι, Αθήνα 1975-1976]