Greek police probe hardline group claims on bombing attacks

Al Jazeera

14-04-2025

Greek police say they are investigating claims by an unknown hardline group that it was responsible for a couple of bomb blasts that rocked Athens over the past year.
A police spokeswoman told Greek media on Monday that the authorities were examining a statement issued by Revolutionary Class Struggle that it was behind an explosion on Friday near the offices of railway operator Hellenic Train last week, as well as an attack at the Ministry of Labour last year.
The group posted a statement on the website Athens.indymedia.org on Sunday, which dedicated both the attacks to 'the Palestinian people and their heroic resistance'.
'The claim is being examined with great attention by the relevant officers so that they can gather information,' police spokeswoman Constantina Dimoglidou told Action 24 TV.
She said it was too early to draw conclusions about the group's identity but police were investigating possible links with other cases in the past.
The Revolutionary Class Struggle statement blamed Hellenic Train, a unit of Italy's Ferrovie dello Stato, for a rail accident in 2023 near the Greek village of Tempi.
The crash, which killed 57 people, has led to numerous protests over deficiencies in the railway system and claims of government corruption.
The group's statement branded them demonstrations against 'state capitalist crime', and sought to link them to Palestine and the war in Gaza 'since they took place within a country with an active role in the American-Zionist genocidal war'.
The statement also said the group was behind a 2024 attack on the Labour Ministry. Neither attack resulted in any injuries as warnings were sent in advance.
Hellenic Train, the operator of passenger and cargo train services, was once a subsidiary of state-owned Hellenic Railways.
In February, Greece's Air and Rail Accident Investigation Authority (HARSIA) said the 2023 accident was due to chronic safety gaps and that they still needed to be addressed to prevent a repeat.
Christos Papadimitriou, the head of HARSIA, resigned on Wednesday, a move expected to further stall efforts to shed light on the country's worst rail disaster.
A judicial investigation is expected to conclude this year.