Greeks deny cover-up

A 1992 Athens rocket attack by November 17

By Paul Wood in Athens

Former CIA director James Woolsey has been summoned to testify in a Greek court after alleging that senior Greek officials are concealing information about the extremist group, November 17.

The group carried out the assassination of Britain's military attache in Athens last Thursday.

In a new interview with the Greek press, Mr Woolsey said the Greek authorities were "blitheringly incompetent" in dealing with terrorism.

He also - more seriously, perhaps - said they were unwilling to do anything effective about November 17.

Produce evidence

The Greek authorities have angrily denied Mr Woolsey's allegations.

Now the public prosecutor's office in Athens has issued a summons demanding that Mr Woolsey testify and produce evidence of his claims.

Brigadier Saunders was shot four times

The former US spymaster warned that Greece's failure to deal with terrorism had seriously damaged US-Greek relations in the past and was now putting Greece's relations with Britain under strain.

Mr Woolsey believes that current or former members of Greek administrations have detailed knowledge of November 17 and are protecting it from the security forces.

Greek denial

American officials say that the group sprang out of an underground movement created by the former Socialist Premier Andreas Papandreou to combat the military junta which ruled Greece in the 1970s.

The Greek government is refusing to act and protecting the terrorists

James Woolsey

The theory is that a trial of those still in November 17 could prove embarrassing to some senior figures in Greece's ruling Socialist party, Pasok.

November 17 has carried out at least 23 assassinations since its campaign of violence began in 1975.

The reason given for the killing of Britain's miltiary attache, Brigadier Stephen Saunders, was Britain's leading role in Nato's bombing of Yugoslavia last year.