The arrest of the 37-year-old Palestinian man in Crete who is linked to Hamas, the corruption case in urban planning services, but also the incidents of domestic violence were mentioned by the Minister of Civil Protection, Michalis Chrysochoidis, in an interview on Monday evening on Action24 TV station.
Regarding the 37-year-old’s case, the minister said that “we know an operational narrative which is the confession of this man that he was preparing after training in Malaysia for some terrorist act in a European country.” At the same time, he stressed that “but there is another very important part for us, which has to do with exactly what mission this man had, who assigned it to him, how they assigned it to him and ultimately what the consequences of such a mission can be.”
Chrysochoidis noted that “Hamas has not attacked any country in Europe. It has never conducted operations outside Israel. Suddenly this constitutes a change of strategy. This is very dangerous, it is a big threat, if indeed it has changed its strategy,” adding that “this is a network, no one is a lone wolf, as has been said. Nobody can act alone.”
Asked about the possibility of accomplices, he said that “the authorities have identified some people and solutions will be found. I believe they will all be identified. The issue is not to start these terrorist networks exporting terrorism.” As he said, “what concerns us is whether networks have spread or are preparing to spread which will carry out terrorist attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets. We are a tourist country, we host thousands of citizens from Israel, you understand how dangerous and how threatening all this is.”
Regarding the assessments that Greece is considered a “friendly” country by Hamas, the minister appeared categorical: “I don’t buy all these speculations, assumptions, conclusions that Hamas considers Greece a friendly or hostile country. These people want to hit Europe because they want to export terrorism, because they want to export their problem, because they have decided to create problems and say we are here and we will blow you up because we think we are being wronged. Terrorism never makes sense.”
On how the authorities arrived at the arrest of the 37-year-old, he noted that “all of this is a product of information coming from various agencies, which are also cooperating with our own agencies, so that we can be a deterrent and not be at risk of such actions.” He further added that the arrested man “was a normal man who worked in a hotel, he was behaving normally. He did a lot of traveling that an ordinary person would not do.”
The minister also referred to the recent busting of a corruption ring in planning departments, noting that “there is some serious work being done here by the Internal Affairs Service, which is an anti-corruption agency. It is a really worthy service with competent staff, dealing with corruption in the security forces, but also corruption in the public sector.” As he said, “a criminal group was dismantled, which was carrying out all these illegalities, which are described in the case file.”
It is something very specific, the mechanisms are there and all these successes and dislocations that are taking place are the work of an agency of the state that is working properly.”
He even described corruption as a “Hydra”, saying “corruption is like the Hydra, you find it everywhere and the cure is twofold: One is to constantly be able to implement new institutions, new ways of administration to ‘break’ the old system. And the second is to investigate, detect and dismantle criminal groups through the justice system.”
Referring to incidents of domestic violence, Chrysochoidis noted that “this year we have a 15% reduction in complaints. Last year, compared to the year before, we had a big increase. Mouths were opened, people were freed – mainly women – and found the courage to report.” As he added, “this year we seem to have a slight downturn, which possibly means that those who practice this ‘sport’ are afraid of going to jail. They now understand that there is the prosecutor, prison, punishment.”
He made special mention of the panic button, noting that “right now more than 25,000 panic buttons have been issued. Every day, more and more are being given to women who want it. I urge them to ask for it. As she explained, “after all, it is not something that is visible. It’s inside the mobile an application as simple as that. It’s also a further security. At the touch of a button on the app in a matter of minutes the police are nearby. And that is very, very important.”
