Dimitris Koufontinas is the man a Greek court identified as the principal perpetrator of the November 17 organization, a far-left group responsible for 23 killings in Athens and elsewhere between 1975 and 2000. Its victims included Greek political, business and police figures, and American, British and Turkish diplomats. He came forward to police in Athens on September 5, 2002, stood trial with 18 co-defendants before a three-judge anti-terrorism court, and was convicted on December 8, 2003. He was sentenced the same month to multiple life terms and 25 years. His appeal was heard from December 2005 and judgments were delivered in May 2007.
The case matters beyond Greece because the organization's killings crossed into the diplomatic corps of three NATO states, and because Koufontinas has remained in the public record for two decades afterward through a series of leave requests, transfers, hunger strikes and release petitions. In December 2021 a judges' council in Lamia ruled that he could not ask for conditional release before 2027. In May 2026 the group's convicted leader was released and in June returned to custody on a Supreme Court ruling, while Koufontinas remained in custody.
Koufontinas was a beekeeper by occupation when he was tried. He was born around 1958. The trial established his place in the organization: the court found him to be its main perpetrator and the person linked to most of its killings, while the group's leader, Alexandros Giotopoulos, was convicted as its organizer.
The organization first appeared in 1975, when its first victim, Richard Welch, the CIA station chief in Athens, was killed in December of that year. Over the next 25 years it was blamed for 23 killings, and the victims included five members of the United States mission in Athens, among them Welch, George Tsantes, William Nordeen and Ronald Stewart. Greek victims named by the U.S. government included Nikos Momferatos, George Athanasiades, Dimitrios Angelopoulos, the member of parliament Pavlos Bakoyannis and Costis Peratikos. For nearly three decades police made no arrests that reached the leadership.
The United States listed the organization as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and, in a notice dated August 26, 2015, revoked both that designation and a separate terrorism designation, stating that the circumstances had changed. The notice gave no further detail.
The killing that most shaped the investigation was the last one. Brigadier Stephen Saunders, 52, was the British defense attache in Athens. He was killed in Athens on Thursday, June 8, 2000. A Greek court later found Koufontinas guilty of his murder, together with Savvas and Vassilis Xiros.
The Greek prime minister called his senior ministers together after the killing, and the foreign minister promised a response he called "most merciless". The British Defense Ministry said Saunders had been in Kuwait with a United Nations observer mission when the 1999 NATO air campaign began. Scotland Yard anti-terrorism experts were sent to Greece, and the Greek government offered a reward of 3 million pounds.
The 2007 appeal judgment covered two further convictions of Koufontinas. Counsellor Omer Haluk Sipahioglu and Press Attache Cetin Gorgu, both of the Turkish embassy in Athens, were killed in separate attacks. The Court of Appeal in Athens, in a judgment announced on May 9, 2007, sentenced Koufontinas to 15 years of heavy imprisonment for the murder of Sipahioglu and to life imprisonment for the murder of Gorgu. It added 44 years for the attempted murder of Ambassador Deniz Bolukbasi. The same judgment gave the organization's leader life terms for both murders and 53 years for the attempt, and gave a third man 44 years for the attempt on the ambassador.
The organization's structure began to come apart in 2002, when a failed operation led to the capture of one member and then the arrest of several others, including the leader, in the summer of that year. Koufontinas was named as a wanted man in early July 2002. On Thursday, September 5, 2002, he went to the Athens police headquarters and told the guard at the gate that he wished to surrender. He was held and questioned there that day.
The trial of 19 defendants, 18 men and one woman, opened in March 2003 before a special three-judge court sitting in a secured courtroom in Athens. Under anti-terrorism laws approved in June 2001, such trials are held without a jury. The indictment ran to about 2,000 counts and took nearly six hours to read on the second day. The proceedings lasted nine months, with about 500 witnesses, more than 50,000 pages of documents and more than 80 lawyers.
Koufontinas, then 45, was charged with taking part in 16 killings and faced 253 charges in all. At the opening, he told the court that he accepted political responsibility for the organization's actions and called the proceedings a political trial. The leader, Giotopoulos, denied every charge. Greek law allows victims' families to ask that lawyers put questions to defendants, and at least 45 foreigners, more than half of them American, were expected to take that step.
The 20-year limitation period for murder shaped what the court could decide. The first four killings, including that of Welch in 1975, were time-barred, and two Greek police officials' deaths were also out of time, so no punishment was possible for them.
On Monday, December 8, 2003, the court convicted 15 of the 19 defendants and acquitted four, among them the only woman. Koufontinas was convicted as the main perpetrator and, by one report, of nine murders, including that of Saunders. Giotopoulos was convicted of organizing the group's activity and of plotting several killings, including that of Saunders, and he maintained his innocence.
Sentences were handed down in mid-December 2003. Giotopoulos received 21 life terms and Koufontinas 13 life terms; six defendants together received 55 life sentences.
The figure for Koufontinas changed over time. When the appeal opened in December 2005 he was serving 13 life sentences and 25 years for 12 murders. By 2018 he was serving 11 life sentences, and later court decisions describe the sentence as 11 life terms and 25 years for 11 murders, attempted murder, membership of a criminal organization and other offenses.
The appeal opened on Friday, December 2, 2005, before a special five-judge court presided over by Judge Dionissis Vertelis. Seventeen people were on trial and the court also heard prosecutors' appeals against two acquittals. Defense lawyers argued that the first trial had been affected by pressure ahead of the 2004 Olympic Games. Koufontinas, then 47, did not deny his participation in the group and repeated that he considered the trial political.
The Court of Appeal's judgment was announced on May 9, 2007.
Greek law allows prisoners who meet its conditions to apply for short periods of leave. From November 2017 Koufontinas received a series of them: a two-day leave on November 9, 2017, which drew public protest. The U.S. ambassador said the decision dishonored the victims' memory and their families, and the British ambassador said she was deeply disappointed while respecting the independence of Greek justice.
In June 2018 he received a further 48-hour leave after a two-week hunger strike over an initial refusal. By May 2019 he had had six leaves. After a seventh request was refused by a judges' council in Volos he began another hunger strike. On May 23, 2019 the Supreme Court found the council's reasoning flawed, held that prisoners with multiple life sentences have the right to regular leave, and sent the case back to a differently composed council. He ended that hunger strike after the ruling.
In December 2020 the government ordered his transfer to another high-security prison. He asked to be returned to Athens. His hunger strike began on January 8, 2021, and officials answered that convicts cannot decide where they serve their sentence and that the state would not give way to blackmail. A judicial council in Lamia unanimously declined to cancel the order, saying it was an administrative act for an administrative court. On March 9, 2021 the Council of State, the highest administrative court, declined to block the transfer pending its ruling, saying it lacked jurisdiction for temporary relief, and set April 2 to examine the order's legality. A separate court had earlier refused to suspend his sentence. He ended the hunger strike on or about March 14, 2021 after 66 days.
In September 2021 he asked for a special high court to be convened to settle where he should be held, and at the same time filed a petition for release. On Friday, December 3, 2021, the Council for Criminal Procedure in Lamia rejected the release request. It accepted the prosecutor's position that the older rule allowing release of life-sentenced prisoners after 16 to 19 years covered only those with a single life term, and that under the 2019 penal code people with multiple life terms may seek conditional release after 25 years. It said he could apply again in 2027, the 25th year of his custody. He had served 19 years at that point.
Greek anti-terrorism legislation approved in 2001 allowed a special court of three judges to hear the case without jurors. A life sentence in Greece does not mean imprisonment for the whole of a person's life: in 2003 lifers could be released conditionally after 20 years, which caused controversy, and some lawyers called the sentences symbolic. Later practice set the threshold at 25 years for multiple life terms under the 2019 code.
The limitation period of 20 years for murder meant that no punishment was possible for the earliest killings, including that of Welch in 1975. The U.S. government's statement after the verdict called the conviction "a victory for Greece and all decent people".
The count of murders behind his sentence changed between the first trial, the appeal and later court decisions, which give eleven. His reasons for surrendering in 2002 were explained in competing ways at the time, and none is confirmed.
December 1975: the organization's first victim, the CIA station chief in Athens, is killed.
June 8, 2000: Brigadier Stephen Saunders is killed in Athens.
Summer 2002: police arrest the group's leader and others after a first capture.
Early July 2002: Koufontinas is named as a wanted man.
September 5, 2002: he comes forward to police in Athens.
March 2003: trial of 19 defendants opens before a three-judge court.
December 8, 2003: verdicts; 15 convicted, four acquitted.
Mid-December 2003: sentences, multiple life terms for Koufontinas.
December 2, 2005: appeal opens before a five-judge court.
May 9, 2007: Court of Appeal judgment announced.
November 9, 2017: first two-day leave from custody.
May 23, 2019: Supreme Court sends his leave request back to a differently composed council.
December 2020: ordered transferred to a high-security prison.
January 8 to about March 14, 2021: hunger strike.
March 9, 2021: Council of State declines interim relief.
December 3, 2021: judges' council in Lamia rejects release; 2027 earliest date for a new request.
May to June 2026: the organization's leader is released and then ordered back to custody by the Supreme Court; Koufontinas remains in custody.