Correspondent: A Greek Tragedy Tx Date: 18th March 2001 This script was made from audio tape - any inaccuracies are due to voices being unclear or inaudible 00.00.00 Music 00.00.04 Edward Stourton In the heart of one of Europe's capitals, a group of terrorists has been killing for a quarter of a century. 00.00.10 Gunshot / Music 00.00.16 Dimou Botsaris Voice over They hit and run. Fade into the darkness only to reappear after long intervals. It's pure guerrilla warfare. 00.00.24 Music 00.00.26 Edward Stourton They're called N17 and they've claimed twenty-three lives. 00.00.30 Gunshot 00.00.32 Nicos Peraticos I will never get over my brother's death. It will always cause me pain. I simply can't let this pass. 00.00.44 Edward Stourton N17's most recent victim was Brigadier Stephen Saunders. 00.00.48 Heather Saunders Actually that was the worst thing because they rang me on the way to the airport and Catherine said; 'Mummy, tell Daddy to hang on'. 00.00.55 Music 00.00.59 Heather Saunders Daddy was dead by then and I was saying; 'Oh I will, I will, he will hold on'. You know I lied but what could you do. 00.01.05 Edward Stourton Greece is part of a Europe committed to the right to justice for its citizens. But not a single member of N17 has ever been caught. 00.01.16 James Woolsey Every single European country that had a group terrorising its population has long since broken the group. Only Greece has failed to make any kind of progress whatsoever. Not a tiny shred of progress. 00.01.30 Correspondent Theme Music 00.01.44 Title Page A GREEK TRAGEDY The Right to Justice 00.01.50 Aston Athens, June 9th 2000 00.01.47 Heather Saunders I only hope that the people that carried out this cowardly act on an unarmed man simply travelling on his way to work will realise the total devastation that they have caused. Not only have they killed my husband but they have now destroyed me and my entire family. As yet I cannot forgive these perpetrators of this horrible crime but God may help me to forgive in time, I don't know. Thank you very much for your support. 00.02.22 Edward Stourton Heather Saunders' appeal put Greece itself on trial. 00.02.26 Edward Stourton The search for her husband's killers has become a litmus test of its commitment to justice. 00.02.34 Edward Stourton The group that killed Brigadier Stephen Saunders has its roots in Greece's turbulent recent history. 00.02.44 Edward Stourton He was the military attaché at the British Embassy in Athens. 00.02.50 Heather Saunders There was one big thing in life was to come home and retire here, plant an enormous vegetable patch, which I probably would have had to look after but you know, that was what he wanted. 00.03.00 Heather Saunders We actually first saw it at the end of December. We bought it and it was pouring with rain when we first saw it, it was just like this we had very bad rain, we came down and fell in love with it. 00.03.12 Edward Stourton How long ago was all that? 00.03.13 Heather Saunders Three years ago now. The year we lived in the house he was working absolutely, you know, physically very hard putting it all together so we'd have a lovely home when he came home. But he didn't come home. 00.03.25 Edward Stourton And now you're back, what's uppermost in your mind? 00.03.28 Aston HEATHER SAUNDERS It's worse now that I'm back because the realisation's hit. This is not Stephen has gone on a little six month tour to wherever, on an army tour. He's, this is Stephen has gone for life. Stephen's never going to walk in through that door, he's never going to walk the dog with me, he's never going to be here for Christmas again. 00.03.47 Heather Saunders The children, they're being wonderful, they're terribly supportive of me, very protective, you know, they've bought me a mobile phone because they're terrified, they think I should have one. 00.03.57 Heather Saunders They have their moments, they're coping a lot better than I am I think. 00.04.01 Saunders family breakfast 00.04.07 Edward Stourton The Saunders family got no special protection in Athens - no British diplomat had ever been a target. But NATO's Kosovo conflict inspired anti-British feeling there. He paid the price. 00.04.18 Music 00.04.20 Heather Saunders Normally I sort of gave him a kiss goodbye. That particular morning I didn't, I don't know why. He went out the door, that was the last time I saw him. Then he went off to work about ten past seven as he normally did. 00.04.23 Aston Reconstruction 00.04.33 Music 00.04.35 Heather Saunders It's the most jam-packed road, Kaffisias Avenue, down into the centre of Athens. And they have killed people in this particular spot before. So, they could be weaving in and out following him. 00.04.44 Aston Reconstruction 00.04.44 Music 00.04.49 Heather Saunders They obviously had came along because he would have been in the outside lane, which is near the central barrier so there's no way he could have avoided, you know, or gone across the traffic or anything. He was pinned in, he was a sitting duck basically, a very easy target. 00.05.02 Music 00.05.05 Heather Saunders They came along, shot him at point blank range. 00.05.07 Gunshot 00.05.10 Heather Saunders And then they sort of disappeared out of the blue in thick traffic. Nobody seems to have seen anything. It's unbelievable. 00.05.22 Edward Stourton The killing put the Greek record on counter-terrorism in the spotlight. The long history of botched investigations was suddenly front-page news all over Europe. 00.05.31 Edward Stourton Athens promised it would be different this time and invited Scotland Yard to join the hunt. What they found was scarcely encouraging. 00.05.39 Aston Dep. Asst. Commissioner ALAN FRY Anti-Terrorism Branch, Metropolitan Police The Greek police have been very honest in saying that their control at the scene following the murder of Brigadier Saunders was such that it was not kept clear of observers, media, members of the public and therefore it is possible that some forensic evidence was accidentally removed from the scene on people's shoes or whatever. 00.06.12 Edward Stourton Heather Saunders was advised to be discreet while the investigation went ahead. 00.06.17 Edward Stourton But after eight months no arrest warrants have been issued and no witnesses have come forward. 00.06.22 Edward Stourton She decided to turn up the public pressure with an exclusive interview for Correspondent. 00.06.28 Heather Saunders It just gets more frustrating because more and more people seem to sort of try to make lame excuses. It's, no, I'm more adamant now about speaking out. I've lost my husband and it's about time the world realised I've lost my husband and that, you know, we're no further forward than we were six months ago. 00.06.44 Music 00.06.46 Edward Stourton This bizarre publicity photograph is one of the very few clues to N17's identity. 00.06.53 Edward Stourton The weapons were stolen from an arms depot, a war museum and a police station. 00.06.59 Edward Stourton The images are suggestive of their Marxist, Leninist ideology but no one really knows what they want. 00.07.05 Music 00.07.08 Edward Stourton Twenty-six years of killing, twenty-three victims to date. Some were Turkish diplomats and many of the names are American. 00.07.16 Edward Stourton But most of N17's targets have themselves been Greek - politicians, prosecutors and industrialists. 00.07.24 Edward Stourton The last Greek to be murdered was a businessman - Costis Peraticos. 00.07.30 Music 00.07.32 Aston Athens 00.07.40 Nicos Peraticos I couldn't stop obsessively thinking about his last moments. And particularly the moments that he was shot. 00.07.47 Music 00.07.51 Edward Stourton Nicos Peraticos is Costis's brother - the two ran the family shipping business together. 00.07.57 Edward Stourton It's four years since Costis was killed and like Heather Saunders, Nicos is haunted by the thought that those who did it are still free. 00.08.06 Nicos Peraticos Losing my brother for me was losing the man I loved the most. We had an intense relationship, we worked together, we played together, we argued together. 00.08.20 Aston NICOS PERATICOS He was a businessman, extremely hardworking, a father of two boys. He was a very good father. He was mercurial but a very intelligent guy. 00.08.38 Nicos Peraticos The last time I saw my brother alive as I left and went to the door of the office I waved to him and he was on the phone and he waved back. 00.08.53 Nicos Peraticos He left the office apparently at about five o'clock in the afternoon, an hour after we had left. And he walked towards the garage. Just before reaching the garage he was approached by three men. 00.09.12 Aston Reconstruction 00.09.16 Gunshot 00.09.17 Nicos Peraticos One of the men shot him in the groin first. My brother fell to the ground and then this same man shot him three times in the chest when he was on the ground. 00.09.33 Gunshots 00.09.34 Aston Reconstruction 00.09.35 Nicos Peraticos The three men then walked away diagonally across to one of the cross-streets where their get-away car, a mini van, was parked. A policeman, who was coming down that street, saw them and he'd obviously heard the shootings and the commotion, shot at them but missed. 00.09.50 Aston Reconstruction 00.09.57 Nicos Peraticos They retraced the road that my brother had taken, hijacked the taxi and drove off to their next get away car, which was three or four blocks away and from that point onwards they essentially disappeared. 00.10.14 Music 00.10.25 Edward Stourton What happened next suggests Heather Saunders' fears about the police investigation may be well founded. 00.10.32 Edward Stourton After just a few months they simply gave up looking for the killers. 00.10.38 Nicos Peraticos The investigation, in my opinion, was totally inadequate. Not only did it end after six months; the impression I got was not that there was any method or science behind their process. It seemed to me to be something that they did for their files. 00.11.06 Edward Stourton There was a witness here - a man who worked in this garage saw everything. But his car was shot up the night of the killing and he stopped co-operating. 00.11.17 Edward Stourton Since the Saunders killing, Nicos and his father Michael have been going through it all again with renewed frustration. 00.11.25 Nicos Peraticos In Costis's case the investigation was extremely superficial. 00.11.31 Michael Peraticos Yes but when it comes to witnesses there was another man who came to see me and he had a shop right where Costis was murdered, so he saw the whole thing again. He came to see me, he described the whole scene, he even put words into his mouth that I don't know whether to accept or not - 'look after my children'. And the man cried. But when I asked him to present himself as a witness - he refused. 00.12.13 Nicos Peraticos Well, there's no protection. He would be, he would be crazy to come forward. 00.12.18 Michael Peraticos Absolutely. 00.12.21 Edward Stourton In the Saunders' inquiry detectives from Scotland Yard decided to trace people who had made calls on mobile telephones around the time of the Brigadier's murder. 00.12.30 Edward Stourton It should have remained secret. In fact the full story was leaked to the press not once, but twice. 00.12.37 Nicos Peraticos Look at this kind of detail. Somehow they've managed to find out how many calls were made in a specific suburb at the moment that Stephen Saunders was being murdered. 00.12.51 Michael Peraticos That should have been impossible and should have stayed confidential. Well this has been the story of the last twenty-six years, in that evidence sometimes was lost. Everything was found out and nothing succeeded, nothing was done. 00.13.18 Music 00.13.22 Edward Stourton Twenty-six years ago N17 first appeared after one of the darkest chapters of modern Greek history. 00.13.28 Music 00.13.30 Edward Stourton Between 1967 and 1974 Greece was ruled by a right-wing military junta - the Colonels as they were known. 00.13.37 Music 00.13.41 Edward Stourton The opposition was driven underground. 00.13.43 Music 00.13.46 Edward Stourton But in November 1973 the student movement took a stand. 00.13.51 Edward Stourton They defied the troops and with demonstrations and a pirate radio station, they succeeded in provoking a popular uprising. 00.13.57 Music 00.13.59 Edward Stourton But in the early hours of November the 17th the rebellion was crushed and martial law followed. 00.14.04 Music 00.14.06 Edward Stourton Two years after this N17 claimed its first victim. 00.14.12 Edward Stourton The group issues a proclamation after each killing. When Heather Saunders and Nicos Peraticos met, these rambling documents provided a focus for their shared sense of injustice. 00.14.22 Heather Saunders This paragraph is particularly significant because they've got Stephen as being involved with the Falklands, which is rubbish. And it also mentions that he, before his, a few days before his murder that he was going out to Sierra Leone, he's never been in Sierra Leone in his life. But it's all, goes from one thing to another, don't you find, I mean you found that with your brother's. 00.14.41 Nicos Peraticos Sure, my brother's proclamation was even more insane than usual. 00.14.47 Heather Saunders But newspapers could refuse to publicise it, couldn't they? 00.14.49 Nicos Peraticos Oh yes, but there's no law against it in Greece. It's legal. It's legal to publish this kind of stuff. They have the ability to kill people and then have their cause somehow publicised and you know you either, you either use the gun or you use reason. And to be allowed to use both is just unacceptable. 00.15.10 Heather Saunders The further and further this goes away from Stephen's time of death the more and more I want these people, I just want them, Nico, taken off the streets and locked up. I want them denied all the pleasures that Stephen and Costis have been denied. I don't want them to have access to anything that Stephen can't have. You know, I want them to be locked up and put away, I don't want them shot, I don't want any, I'm not looking for their blood, I want them put away and locked away. And that's it and off the street. 00.15.40 Edward Stourton Nicos Peraticos and Heather Saunders have joined forces to give a voice to the relatives of N17's victims. 00.15.47 Edward Stourton They're forming a group to keep up the pressure on the Greek government. 00.15.51 Nicos Peraticos The Saunders and Peraticos families, the families of the two most recent murder victims of the terrorist group 17 N, announced this month in London the formation of an organisation which they hope will include all the families and survivors of the terrorist group's activities. 00.16.03 Heather Saunders What should we call it? Organisation, group, lobby? I'll have to think about the name of the group. To be honest I, it takes me twice as long now to think about things as it did before. 00.16.15 Nicos Peraticos But I hope to be seeing the two American ladies next week and so hopefully this won't be the Saunders and Peraticos families, it'll be a couple of, a couple more names at least to start with. 00.16.26 Music 00.16.27 Aston Arlington National Cemetery, USA 00.16.34 Edward Stourton Most of N17's foreign targets have been American. Five American Embassy staff have been killed. 00.16.40 Music 00.16.47 Edward Stourton In many Greek eyes the stars and stripes are tarnished by America's association with the Colonel's regime. 00.16.53 Music 00.16.58 Edward Stourton N17's first ever victim was the CIA Station Chief in Athens - Richard Welch. 00.17.04 Music 00.17.10 Edward Stourton His widow lives just outside Washington - not far from her husband's grave. 00.17.17 Cristina Welch We were invited to the Ambassador's Christmas party. 00.17.22 Aston Athens, December 1975 00.17.24 Cristina Welch Well, we drove home late from the party and at the time we had a big car, it was black car, everybody knew it. 00.17.29 Aston Reconstruction 00.17.33 Aston CRISTINA WELCH And I noticed that the lights were not, were out in our street and it was very dark. And our chauffeur, Vengalis, had to stop the car to open the gate. 00.17.42 Aston Reconstruction 00.17.45 Music 00.17.51 Cristina Welch And then Dick got out. Somebody called him by name, saying; 'Kirya Welch'. 00.17.58 Aston Reconstruction 00.17.59 Gunshot 00.18.01 Cristina Welch He was shot right there and then. I just stood there like an idiot. No, I was really petrified. I couldn't even scream. 00.18.13 Cristina Welch The three men ran to the waiting car and drove off. And I ran towards Dick naturally. So I put my hand on his, on his throat, you know, and I knew that he was dead. 00.18.30 Edward Stourton Before Richard Welch's assassination no one had heard of N17. So when they claimed the killing as theirs no one believed it. 00.18.39 Edward Stourton But one year and one murder later and the first of those trademark proclamations appeared in the left-wing French paper, 'Liberation'. 00.18.48 Edward Stourton It gave full details of the operation against Welch and railed against what it called 'the enormous CIA crimes against the Greek people'. 00.19.00 Cristina Welch This one you see how they're carrying the casket. The next one is President Ford, Kissinger and my father-in-law, Colonel Welch. And that last one is my father-in-law. You can see how sad he was. 00.19.19 Nicos Peraticos It's a very sad picture. 00.19.20 Nicos Peraticos He only lived five months later, then he died. And I think he died out of pure sadness, you know. It took me years to be able to talk about it. They thought I needed psychological help and I said no, the only thing I need is time. And it really is - time will heal. 00.19.38 Nicos Peraticos Yeah and seeing the date on your husband's tombstone reminded me how, what a long time that is that nothing's happened. 00.19.48 Cristina Welch It's twenty-five years. 00.19.50 Nicos Peraticos We're hoping to get just a few relatives together and to just knock on people's doors. 00.20.03 Aston Portsmouth, Rhode Island 00.20.08 Patricia Nordeen This was actually one of the last photos that was taken of Bill and we were attending the British Ambassadors midsummer ball. 00.20.18 Edward Stourton Patricia Nordeen has never spoken publicly about her husband's death before. Bill Nordeen was a navy pilot on a diplomatic posting to Athens. 00.20.27 Patricia Nordeen It is comforting to be able to talk to someone's who's actually been in the same position. Because unless you have you can't relate it to anything else. 00.20.37 Nicos Peraticos Sure. 00.20.38 Patricia Nordeen Yes, you're the first person we've met. 00.20.40 Aston PATRICIA NORDEEN When that bomb sounded, the morning that my husband was murdered, we thought it was an earthquake at first. And the house shook and the windows fell in and we ran downstairs. I mean our, we didn't even think bomb and then the enormity of it finally hit me. Oh my God. I fortunately fainted. 00.21.04 Music 00.21.10 Edward Stourton The bomb, which killed Captain Nordeen, was hidden in a parked car. It was detonated by someone watching as he drove past. 00.21.16 Music 00.21.20 Edward Stourton This time N17's proclamation blamed the Americans for the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. 00.21.25 Music 00.21.27 Edward Stourton 'American military forces in our country', it added, 'are an occupation force and we will strike against whoever belongs to them'. 00.21.35 Nicos Peraticos What we've done is we've prepared a statement, actually we're preparing a statement, in which we describe what it is we want to do and throw emphasis on the fact that we're not interested in politics. 00.21.46 Patricia Nordeen Great. Right because I would not be interested in... 00.21.51 Nicos Peraticos Absolutely. 00.21.52 Patricia Nordeen I'm not a political activist at all. 00.21.53 Nicos Peraticos I agree. Neither am I and neither is Heather, nor is Cristina Welch and it's got nothing to do with politics. It's a very human approach. 00.22.02 Patricia Nordeen Yeah, it would be something I would be interested in. 00.22.05 Nicos Peraticos Great. 00.22.11 Edward Stourton Nicos Peraticos's American pilgrimage took him to the doors of those who have made N17's business their business. 00.22.18 Music 00.22.22 Edward Stourton And from the CIA to the State Department everyone had their own story of frustration and failure to tell. 00.22.29 Aston WAYNE MERRY US Embassy, Athens, 1987-90 The Greek government was very embarrassed by the assassination of Captain Nordeen and it immediately engaged in, at least the appearance of a major police investigation. Unfortunately it became quite apparent to those of us in the Embassy who were engaged in counter-terrorism efforts that we were seeing much more a demonstration of an investigation than a real investigation. 00.22.58 Edward Stourton James Woolsey was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1990s. 00.23.05 Edward Stourton He says America sent specialists and intelligence to help the Greek police fight terrorism - all to no avail. 00.23.13 Aston JAMES WOOLSEY CIA Director, 1993-95 The US government has provided substantial information in the past to the Greek government, to Greek authorities relating to 17 November. At some points it seemed as if Greek intelligence, the Greek police were working seriously on this, at least starting to. But then essentially work stopped and from all we've been able to see in this country there hasn't been any progress on this issue for many, many years. 00.23.42 Edward Stourton The Americans spend more on security at their embassy in Greece than in any other country. Even the flower pots outside are tank-proof. 00.23.49 Edward Stourton And for a decade the United States ran a training programme to develop the anti-terrorist skills of the Greek police. But in 1996 when Tom Niles was the American Ambassador in Athens, he cancelled the programme. 00.24.02 Thomas Niles We started this programme with the Greek government where members of the counter-terrorism force were trained largely in the United States. 00.24.11 Aston THOMAS NILES US Ambassador to Greece, 1993-97 And we found almost inevitably that after we trained these folks up and they came back to Greece they were shunted off to do all kinds of things - directing traffic on Hedra where there are no cars, that kind of thing. I mean these people weren't being used. And what we had was a situation where perversely this programme worked against us, where we would pick the best people, the people we thought were most talented, send them to the Untied States to be trained. They'd come back to Greece and - gone! 00.24.42 Edward Stourton The most notorious police failure in the fight against N17 occurred here - in Louise Riankour Street. 00.24.48 Edward Stourton The police came within feet of members of N17 and they had them under close observation for several days but they let them get away. 00.24.55 Aston Reconstruction 00.24.58 Edward Stourton It began with a surveillance operation after the police received a series of anonymous telephone calls from a woman. 00.25.04 Edward Stourton She claimed to have information about a planned N17 hit. She said it would begin with a rendezvous in Louise Riankour Street and she gave a date as well as a place. 00.25.21 Stephanos Makris Voice over She gave us the impression of being legitimate and we thought her information was accurate. 00.25.31 Aston STEPHANOS MAKRIS Chief of Greek Police, 1992-93 Voice over The area where the meeting of 17 November was due to take place was surrounded. We waited for them to arrive. 00.25.46 Music 00.25.48 Aston Reconstruction 00.25.50 Edward Stourton The police stake-out lasted for several days. N17 later boasted in one of their proclamations that they were watching the police every bit as closely as the police were watching them. 00.26.03 Edward Stourton There's still no clear account of what went wrong. One story has it that several days into the operation a policeman made a telephone call. 00.26.12 Edward Stourton When it was over he ran towards a waiting police car suspiciously quickly and that may have alerted the terrorists. 00.26.18 Music 00.26.21 Edward Stourton They pulled away into the heavy Athens traffic. 00.26.23 Music 00.26.29 Edward Stourton There was a pursuit for a short time but what happened next is even murkier. Some accounts say the officer in charge hesitated fatally, others that there was an order to drop the chase. 00.26.41 Edward Stourton Either way the terrorists were gone. It had people asking whether there was something more than incompetence at work. 00.26.52 Stephanos Makris Voice over While we did act properly on the information received, unfortunately in the execution, due to the hesitation of an officer who was at the most critical place, the operation failed. There is no doubt that this was the only occasion when the police were so close to this organisation. It was indeed a huge missed opportunity. 00.27.20 Thomas Niles If this had happened as an isolated incident, so you could say that in the course of an otherwise successful programme you had this strange incident you could say well, things happen, nobody's perfect. But this was a strange incident in the midst of, or as part of, a series of failures. Just one after another. 00.27.44 Thomas Niles Accidental? Hard to believe. 00.27.47 Michael Peraticos Now our police are not very well organised but as far as intelligence go I think they're all right. 00.27.59 Nicos Peraticos Of course. 00.28.00 Aston MICHAEL PERATICOS So they're quite successful in ordinary crime, why didn't they catch these people that they were following for four days? Nobody can tell me that there isn't something peculiar about the whole thing. 00.28.17 Music 00.28.21 Edward Stourton Athens is still haunted by the ghosts of the Colonels' regime. 00.28.26 Edward Stourton The years of dictatorship left their legacy. Even today people are suspicious of laws which allow the police into their lives. 00.28.34 Edward Stourton And N17 have got away with it for so long that they seem to be invincible. 00.28.40 Aston HEATHER SAUNDERS You know, there's a sort of mysticism about them that they sort of sweep in and sweep out and you know and that they're impossible to catch but they're not. It's only a small group but they seem to think it's everywhere. 00.28.52 Heather Saunders I cannot believe that nobody knows something, there isn't some information. I mean where are the guns stored for instance. They had to get bullets didn't they from somewhere, they don't grow on trees. They had to get motorbikes from somewhere, they had to, there's lots of people that were involved in putting this up, it's not just something they do on the spur of the moment. 00.29.13 Edward Stourton N17 fosters its mystique by the way it delivers its proclamations. Dead letter drops like something out of a cold war spy novel. 00.29.23 Edward Stourton Costas Kyriacopoulos is the crime reporter on Eleftherotypia, a left-wing daily. He's collected many of the proclamations from N17. 00.29.32 Aston Reconstruction 00.29.34 Costas Kyriacopoulos Voice over We circle around a bit first. We take the proclamation and read it immediately on the spot because it may contain warning of another strike and we need to give ourselves time to inform the police immediately. 00.29.51 Aston COSTAS KYRIACOPOULOS Crime Correspondent, Eleftherotypia Voice over Then we return here to start the process of reading, summarising and presenting the proclamation in the paper. 00.30.02 Thomas Niles None of the media, while I was there, seemed to really take the counter-terrorism programme seriously or push the line that hey, this is a national problem, we've got to get behind it and solve it. 00.30.14 Aston THOMAS NILES US Ambassador to Greece, 1993-97 That particular point of view wasn't present in the Greek media while I was there. Other parts of the Greek media were clearly sympathetic to November 17. 00.30.25 Edward Stourton What is the headline say? 00.30.26 Seraphim Fytanides Why Saunders. 00.30.27 Edward Stourton Why Saunders? This is their justification for what they did. 00.30.30 Seraphim Fytanides It says - 'let us become your protectors, otherwise we will destroy you'. 00.30.37 Edward Stourton The Editor of Eleftherotypia is Seraphim Fytanides. Most of the N17 tip-offs about their proclamations come to his paper. And he's extremely sensitive about the accusation that he treats the group sympathetically. 00.30.51 Aston SERAPHIM FYTANIDES Editor, Eleftherotypia I don't agree. If you see our headlines, they don't say; 'Oh well done'. It is a simple reference what the group of 17 November says about this murder. 00.31.10 Edward Stourton It's one thing to defend freedom of the press but the way you publish these proclamations... 00.31.15 Seraphim Fytanides It is news. 00.31.16 Edward Stourton But you put them on the front-page, you put the group's logo up there, it's almost as if they're an editorial for the newspaper. 00.31.20 Seraphim Fytanides At a distance. 00.31.23 Edward Stourton But it looks, it look like free advertising doesn't it? 00.31.26 Seraphim Fytanides Of course and even Mr Sadaam Hussein's speeches in the front-page of the Daily Mirror or The Times. 00.31.34 Edward Stourton Not in that form, not in that form though. 00.31.37 Seraphim Fytanides It's the same. But believe me I can understand the grief of Mrs Saunders or the interest you show about this killing. But in the Greek society terrorism is not an everyday subject because this small group kills every two or three years and disappear. 00.32.05 Explosion 00.32.08 Edward Stourton Yet only two hours after we spoke to Mr Fytanides a bomb detonated in Piraeus. 00.32.14 Edward Stourton Its target, a right-wing politician, had sixty-three pieces of shrapnel removed from his body but he lived. 00.32.20 Edward Stourton Last year there were no less than a hundred and fifteen politically inspired terrorist attacks in Greece. No-one claimed this one but the police accused N17 00.32.30 Edward Stourton There is a theory that the group has survived for so long because it's been protected. Like so much else in Greek politics the theory goes back to the Colonels. 00.32.39 Music 00.32.42 Edward Stourton The Colonel's rule gave rise to the Pan-Hellenic Liberation Movement or PAK - a left-wing opposition coalition. 00.32.47 Music 00.32.50 Edward Stourton Democratic politicians and those willing to use violence struggled side by side within it. 00.32.54 Music 00.32.57 Edward Stourton With the return to a democracy PAK was disbanded and became a legitimate political party called PASOK. 00.33.05 Edward Stourton PASOK has now become the political establishment. It's held power for seventeen of the last twenty years. 00.33.12 Edward Stourton But despite the success of its leaders at the polls some of the old PAK activists could not, some say, give up their violent ways. 00.33.25 Aston THEODOROS ANAGNOSTOPOULOS MP Former Public Order Minister, New Democracy Voice over If you take a number of people, young people, and put them on a revolutionary route, often the way things turn out, you will no longer be able to control them. 00.33.40 Edward Stourton This Athens suburb is home to a man whose devoted much of his life to unravelling the legacy of those days. 00.33.49 Edward Stourton Dimou Botsaris himself made the transition from PAK activist to PASOK politician. In the end he left the party, partly over policy differences on counter-terrorism. 00.34.00 Edward Stourton His theory is that some of the ties formed in the old PAK days between legitimate politicians and terrorists may never have been broken. 00.34.12 Aston DIMOU BOTSARIS Former PASOK MP Voice over PAK gave birth to PASOK and the invisible PASOK gave birth to political terrorism. In the end obviously 17 November became the main terrorist group. Because of these relationships what happened over the last twenty-five years happened. 00.34.34 Edward Stourton Mr Botsaris spent more than ten years writing about N17 and the people he believed were behind it. 00.34.41 Edward Stourton It landed him in an ugly courtroom confrontation. 00.34.48 Edward Stourton He accused this writer of being N17's ideological mentor. 00.34.52 Edward Stourton The libel case between them ended in a draw but then the threats and intimidation began. 00.34.57 Music 00.35.01 Dimou Botsaris Voice over A huge effort was made to marginalise me. Accusations were made against me, which couldn't be substantiated. 00.35.11 Dimou Botsaris Voice over I paid a heavy price. My health was ruined and I lost someone very precious to me - my mother. Both these things were due to the pressure and the blackmail exerted on me. 00.35.24 Edward Stourton Do you think there are people still in PASOK, perhaps even in government, who wish to assist the aims and objectives of N17 and indeed perhaps to ensure that the campaign against terrorism fails? 00.35.37 Dimou Botsaris Voice over Historically it can't be doubted. 00.35.39 Edward Stourton Why do you say that? 00.35.43 Dimou Botsaris Voice over I say it because every time any minister of public order got close to the terrorists, strange mechanisms came into play to prevent further developments that might have led to arrests. 00.35.59 Edward Stourton One such Minister of Public Order was this man - Stelios Papathemelis. 00.36.05 Edward Stourton In the mid-1990's he received previously classified documents from the East German Secret Police - the Stasi. 00.36.12 Edward Stourton And he believed they provided enough evidence to begin prosecutions against Greek terrorists. 00.36.24 Aston STELIOS PAPATHEMELIS MP Former Public Order Minster, PASOK Voice over They referred to two incidents in the 1980s. Judicial action was never taken. I was called to explain why I believed there was a case for prosecuting. I told them that in such very difficult cases we would need prosecutors and judges, who were ready to take risks, determined people and people without families if possible. I knew what I was dealing with. 00.36.55 Music 00.36.56 Edward Stourton What he meant was that anyone investigating N17 risked their lives. He was quietly shunted out of his job. 00.37.04 Edward Stourton Why were you moved? 00.37.09 Stelios Papathemelis Voice over I was forced to resign. 00.37.11 Edward Stourton Why were you forced to resign? 00.37.18 Stelios Papathemelis Voice over There were many reasons. The time hasn't yet come for me to talk about it. 00.37.25 Edward Stourton But at Eleftherotypia the idea of a high-level conspiracy to protect N17 and intimidate its enemies is dismissed with ridicule. 00.37.36 Seraphim Fytanides It is a silly thing because this group started killing in 1975 when we had another government, a conservative government. And since then more than thirty or forty ministers of public order have changed. More than eight prime ministers and more than a hundred chiefs of police. One of them would have said the truth. 00.38.11 Aston WAYNE MERRY US Embassy, Athens, 1987-90 In my view when any government anywhere demonstrates total consistency on anything for twenty-five years it's not an accident, it's a policy. 00.38.22 Wayne Merry I think it is true that the current Greek government, the government of Prime Minister Simites, is profoundly embarrassed by its failures in this area in fighting terrorism. But I think there are within the older line wing of PASOK and into the Greek government, people who look upon these terrorists as having in some sense been old comrades. But however the terrorists and the party have taken different paths in the last quarter of a century that they had their origins in the same struggle against the military dictatorship. 00.38.58 Music 00.39.04 Edward Stourton The Saunders killing has transformed the politics of the fight against N17. 00.39.09 Edward Stourton The Greek parliament's now considering a witness protection programme, trial without jury and the use of DNA evidence. And the government is apologising for twenty-six years of failure. 00.39.19 Music 00.39.24 Aston MICHALIS STATHOPOULOS Justice Minister Voice over It makes us sad. There are probably several reasons. One is that this organisation, 17 November, only strikes after long intervals and then it disappears. It's not like the IRA in Britain or like the groups from Italy or Germany were, where there were frequent strikes and there was lot of evidence left behind. 00.39.49 Edward Stourton There are, of course, the allegations that one of the reasons these killings haven't been solved is that there are people on the left, in senior positions in government, perhaps now, perhaps in the past, who are in some way connected with N17 and don't want to see the names found out. 00.40.09 Michalis Stathopoulos Voice over This should be put to people with police responsibilities. My position is that so long as there is no evidence we cannot accept these allegations. I don't want to believe there is such a link. Buy anyway, if anyone has evidence, let him present it. 00.40.31 Music 00.40.37 Edward Stourton Greece is now preparing to host the Olympic Games of 2004. 00.40.41 Music 00.40.42 Edward Stourton That puts Athens on probation. The eyes not just of Europe but of the world now watching the way it fights its battle with terrorism. 00.40.53 Aston JAMES WOOLSEY CIA Director, 1993-95 Well for the 2004 Olympics I think the Greek government would be presumed to offer assurances. I would hope that they would. That American and British athletes and American and British spectators are not going to meet 17 November as part of the reception committee when they come to Athens for the Olympic Games. But if the Greek government offers those assurances without doing anything whatsoever to arrest or break the power of 17 November and its members, what are those assurances worth? 00.41.26 Music / Gunfire 00.41.34 Aston Reconstruction 00.41.36 Edward Stourton It's whispered in Athens that there could be arrests once the new anti-terrorist law comes into force. 00.41.43 Edward Stourton In the meantime the relatives of those who died during this killing campaign must wait for justice. 00.41.48 Music 00.41.51 Cristina Welch He just loved Greece. That is the terrible thing because he always said the Greek will never hurt me, they will never do anything against me. 00.42.01 Music 00.42.08 Patricia Nordeen Part of me died with Bill. That part of me has gone forever and it will never come back. 00.42.14 Music 00.42.18 Heather Saunders So he was looking quite trim then. I think in Athens he was looking a bit more portly but not too bad, not too bad. I've got hundreds of photographs actually but I just don't have enough frames to put them all in sometimes. You know it becomes a thing you do when you lose somebody, I'm sure you found the same, you sort of clutter the place with photographs don't you. 00.42.38 Heather Saunders Stephen hasn't yet got a headstone because they have to let the ground settle and with the rain we've had this winter it's been a bit awkward. But here he is. 00.42.49 Nicos Peraticos Have you chosen any particular words or? 00.42.53 Heather Saunders It's very non-military. I've made it very sort of simple. I can't remember the wording exactly. I think it's sort of, oh yes I did actually say something military. I did say; 'To the world you're a soldier, to us... To the world you were a solider to us you were the world'. And loving father and husband. 00.43.12 Nicos Peraticos That's very nice. 00.43.13 Heather Saunders So that's nice and you know it will be very plain, simple. It's just all too recent, too soon. Too soon. 00.43.27 End Music 00.43.34 Credits www.bbc.co.uk/correspondent Reporter EDWARD STOURTON Photography STEFAN THISSEN IAN PERRY Sound VAGELIS ZIAKAS THOMAS SOFIANOPOULOS TERRY LUCKING Dubbing Mixer PETE BROWN VT Editor JASPAL BANGA Graphic Design NICOLA OWEN Production Team ASTRA CURZON JULIA DANNENBERG RACHALE DAVIES MARTHA ESTCOURT Production Manager JANE WILLEY Unit Manager IRENE OZGA Research CONSTANTINE BUHAYER JO DUTTON VIRGINIA MUCCHI Film Editor JOANNA LINCOLN Co-Producer NICKY BOLSTER Produced & Directed by DAVID AKERMAN Executive Producer FARAH DURRANI 00.43.54 Series Producer KATE SNELL BBC (c) BBC MMI 00.43.59 End BBC Correspondent 1 2