Anarchist revolutionary Babis Tsilianidis is imprisoned since January 2011, and currently held in Koridallos prison, Athens. He has faced a series of court proceedings, in all of which he has refused to attend. The comrade received suspended sentences at those trials, and this fact would have sufficed for his immediate release from prison if it weren’t for a last trial pending against him in relation to an armed burglary at the accounting department of the AHEPA hospital in Thessaloniki. The police “evidence”, that brought his third consecutive pretrial incarceration, was solely DNA-based.
This trial finally took place on January 22, 2013. Babis Tsilianidis was found guilty of all charges, and sentenced to 10 years and 4 months without parole. This specific case brought the first conviction of a political prisoner in Greece on the basis of one piece of circumstantial evidence alone—that is, the only incriminating evidence presented by the prosecution was that a trace of the defendant’s genetic profile “matched” a DNA sample taken from a handkerchief which was found somewhere near the burglary scene.
On October 16th, 2013 the judges denied the request of anarchist prisoner Babis Tsilianidis for an interruption of serving sentence. Approximately 30 comrades held a gathering at the Thessaloniki courthouse.
