Alexandros Giotopoulos was born in Paris in 1944 and spent most of his adult life in Greece and France. On December 8, 2003 a three-judge anti-terrorism court in Athens convicted him as the leader of the group known as November 17, which is blamed for 23 deaths between 1975 and 2000 and for dozens of other attacks and robberies. Nine days later the same court sentenced him to 21 life terms. After an appeal heard by a five-judge court, the figure was set at 17 life terms and 25 years' imprisonment. Giotopoulos has denied every charge since his arrest in July 2002. He told the court that the charges were fabricated and that the authorities wanted to convict someone as leader so the case could be closed.
In May 2026, at the age of 82 and after about 24 years in custody, he was conditionally released. The Supreme Court annulled that decision on June 15, and on June 16 he was returned to custody.
He was born in 1944 and grew up in Chalandri, in the Athens area. In 1962 he went to Paris for his studies. He studied economics and mathematics. He later completed postgraduate and doctoral work in mathematics at a French university, much of it during his years in custody.
Through the years of the military regime, which ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974, he was active in groups on the left outside parliament and took part in the Paris-based opposition to the dictatorship. He is said to have travelled to Cuba in 1968. He returned to Greece in 1974, after the regime fell, and in the years that followed lived between Athens, Paris and the Aegean island of Lipsi.
Prosecutors later described him as the group's founder and ideologue. He rejected that description at every stage.
The group took its name from the uprising of November 1973 against the military regime. Its first victim, in 1975, was Richard Welch, the CIA station chief in Athens. Over the following quarter-century the group was blamed for the deaths of 23 people. They included four American officials, two Turkish diplomats, Greek politicians, industrialists and publishers, police officers, and a British defense attaché.
Several of the dead are named in the verdicts. The publisher Nikos Momferatos died in 1985, together with the driver Panagiotis Rousetis. The industrialist Alexandros Athanasiadis Bodossakis died in 1988. Pavlos Bakoyannis, a member of parliament, died in September 1989. The shipowner Kostis Peratikos died in 1997. Among the diplomats, the Turkish counsellor Omer Haluk Sipahioglu and press attache Cetin Gorgu died in separate cases, and the ambassador, Deniz Bolukbasi, survived an attempt on his life. The last of the group's cases was that of Brigadier Stephen Saunders, the British defense attache, who died in Athens in June 2000.
A 20-year limitation period applied to the trial. It meant that the first four deaths, beginning with that of Welch in 1975, could not be punished, and the court considered only acts from the preceding two decades. This is also why the number of cases for which Giotopoulos was finally convicted is smaller than the 23 deaths attributed to the group as a whole.
For more than a quarter of a century the group was not dismantled. The change came in June 2002, when an incident in the port of Piraeus injured a man named Savvas Xiros and led police to the first of several addresses linked to the group. Xiros later gave detailed statements. By early August 2002 eight of 14 suspects in custody had been held in special cells, and officials expected to find the group's four founding members.
Giotopoulos was arrested on July 17, 2002 by the Anti-Terrorism Service on Lipsi, as he prepared to leave the island by sea. He was 58. Co-defendants had named him as their leader, and police said that some evidence linked him to the case.
On Tuesday July 23, 2002 he was arraigned in Athens at a closed hearing that lasted about 30 minutes. He faced multiple murder charges linked to the alleged founding and leadership of the group, any of which could bring a life term. His lawyer told journalists that his client rejected the accusation and questioned the motives of the people who had confessed, calling their statements full of lies. Two other suspects were arraigned with him, three more men had been arraigned the previous weekend, and another man had given himself up and said he had been a member.
The trial of 19 suspected members opened in Athens in March 2003 before a special court of three judges, without a jury, as Greek terrorism law provides. It was held in a special courtroom inside a high-security prison complex in the capital. About 500 witnesses were heard over nine months, and the cost was put at more than 2.4 million dollars.
Giotopoulos faced a record 963 charges, ranging from murder to robbery. Other defendants were named in the same indictment, among them Dimitris Koufodinas, described as the group's main perpetrator.
Giotopoulos took the witness stand on September 4, 2003. "The charges are fabricated," he said, and he told the judges that the authorities wanted to convict someone as leader so that the case could be closed. He argued that he had been targeted for his opposition to the 1967 to 1974 military dictatorship, and he said that from 1975 he had lived in Athens and worked as a translator. Other defendants had named him as leader.
On Monday December 8, 2003 the court convicted 15 of the 19 defendants and acquitted four, among them the only woman. Giotopoulos, then 59, was found guilty as the leader of the group, and Koufodinas as its chief perpetrator. Giotopoulos said afterwards that the decision was one he had expected.
Sentences were announced on December 17, 2003. Giotopoulos received 21 life terms, and is also said to have received 25 years' imprisonment. Koufodinas received 13 life terms, four other core members between one and ten life terms each, and 13 further men lesser sentences. The court was to consolidate sentences for robberies and other attacks, which would reduce most of the lesser terms to about 25 years. The sentences made parole virtually impossible for most of the men.
The appeal opened on December 2, 2005 before a five-judge special court presided over by Judge Dionissis Vertelis, again without a jury and again held inside a maximum-security Athens jail. It was expected to last about nine months. Defense lawyers argued that the first trial had been tainted by intense international and domestic pressure ahead of the 2004 Athens Olympics, though there was little expectation that the original verdicts would be overturned. Prosecutors also appealed against the acquittal of two defendants.
Giotopoulos, then 61, repeated that he was innocent and called the conviction absurd and ridiculous. At the appeal he described the case as a conspiracy against him, declined to answer questions, and for a time withdrew from the proceedings and revoked his lawyers' mandate before returning, when the court reappointed the same team.
The court's decision, announced in 2007, convicted him of moral instigation and complicity in 17 cases and of membership of the group, and reduced the sentence to 17 life terms and 25 years' imprisonment. In the cases of the two Turkish diplomats the court gave him life imprisonment for each of the two deaths and 53 years for the attempt on the ambassador. The Turkish foreign ministry called the verdict a considerable step in counter-terrorism cooperation. The Supreme Court later rejected his further appeal, and in 2011 he took his case to the European Court of Human Rights. In March 2010 the Greek Ombudsman ruled in his favour after the prison authorities refused his request to use a computer for his studies.
Under Greek law a prisoner serving multiple life terms can ask for conditional release. From 2022 Giotopoulos received regular prison leave and complied with its conditions. Four earlier applications were rejected. On October 23, 2025 he filed a fifth.
The Piraeus Misdemeanours Council rejected it, and the Appeals Prosecutor opposed it, but the Piraeus Appeals Council granted it, and on May 21, 2026, after about 24 years in custody, he left prison. The council applied the earlier 19-year minimum for life prisoners and took into account his conduct, his leave record and his doctorate. The conditions were a ban on leaving Greece, regular reporting at a police station and a fixed residence in Athens. The council itself noted that he had neither accepted responsibility for his crimes nor expressed remorse.
The decision drew immediate objections. The US State Department said it was deeply disappointed and urged Greece to do everything possible to return him to custody, noting that attacks of which he was convicted had killed American diplomatic and military staff. The Association of Judges and Prosecutors replied that parole decisions belong exclusively to the courts. The Supreme Court Prosecutor, Konstantinos Tzavellas, ordered an immediate review, and Deputy Prosecutor Sofoklis Logothetis filed for annulment. He argued that a 2021 law requires prisoners serving multiple life terms to complete 25 years of actual imprisonment before release, that Giotopoulos had not done so, and that the council had not shown any change in circumstances since the earlier rejections.
The Supreme Court's Fifth Criminal Division, chaired by Vice President Panagiotis Lymperopoulos, heard the case in closed session on June 5, 2026 and on June 15 annulled the release in a 26-page ruling. It held that the Appeals Council had misread the 2021 law and that Giotopoulos, who had served 24 years since 2002, had not reached the 25-year threshold. It added that the lower court had not adequately explained how it concluded that he showed the prospect of lawful conduct and safe reintegration, given that it had itself recorded that he neither accepted responsibility nor expressed remorse. The Justice Minister, George Floridis, defended the ruling in a television interview, saying that a man of 83 had 17 murders to answer for.
On June 16, 2026 he was taken from police headquarters in Athens to the Piraeus prosecutor's office and returned to custody. The original rejection of his request was restored, and the case went back to the Piraeus Appeals Council under a different judicial composition. The Supreme Court's reading of the 2021 law is binding on it. In mid-June 2026 the council's reconsideration was still pending.
Greek terrorism cases are tried without a jury by a panel of professional judges, three at first instance and five on appeal, and the first-instance trial was held in a special courtroom inside a high-security complex in Athens. The country has no death penalty. A life term in Greek law is not served in full: a prisoner can apply for conditional release after a minimum period. Until a 2021 law that minimum, as the Piraeus council applied it, was 19 years for a life prisoner; the 2021 law requires at least 25 years of actual imprisonment for those serving multiple life terms, which is the provision on which the Supreme Court relied. In his case the request went first to the Piraeus Misdemeanours Council, then to the Piraeus Appeals Council, and finally to the Supreme Court on the prosecutor's appeal.
The verdict came in the run-up to the 2004 Athens Olympics, and was seen as part of the country's effort to show that it could counter terrorist threats.
Giotopoulos has never accepted that he belonged to the group, let alone led it. His position is that the charges were fabricated, that co-defendants who named him did so to win leniency, and that the evidence against him is disputed. The Supreme Court recorded in 2026 that he has consistently refused since 2003 to acknowledge his actions.
The sentence fell from 21 life terms at first instance to 17 on appeal. The number 17 is the number of cases in which the appeal court found him guilty of moral instigation and complicity; the group as a whole is blamed for 23 deaths, and the first four were time-barred.
1944: born in Paris.
1962: goes to Paris to study.
1974: returns to Greece after the fall of the military regime.
1975: Richard Welch dies, the first of 23 deaths attributed to the group.
June 2000: Brigadier Stephen Saunders dies in Athens, the last of the group's cases.
June 2002: an incident in Piraeus leads police to addresses linked to the group.
July 17, 2002: Giotopoulos is arrested on Lipsi.
July 23, 2002: arraigned in Athens on multiple murder charges.
March 2003: trial of 19 defendants opens in Athens.
September 4, 2003: Giotopoulos testifies and denies all charges.
December 8, 2003: convicted as leader; 15 of 19 convicted, four acquitted.
December 17, 2003: sentenced to 21 life terms.
December 2, 2005: appeal trial opens before five judges.
2007: appeal decision sets 17 life terms and 25 years.
2022: begins regular prison leave.
October 23, 2025: files a fifth application for conditional release.
May 21, 2026: released on conditions.
June 5, 2026: Supreme Court hears the prosecutor's appeal in closed session.
June 15, 2026: Supreme Court annuls the release.
June 16, 2026: returned to custody; the Piraeus Appeals Council is to reconsider the request.