15.2.13
Based on the DNA evidence collected by the police from a number of hide-outs, it appears that Nikos Romanos first participated in an anarchist group attack aged 16, a few months after the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos. Romanos (and another SPF member later arrested for mail bombs) are thought to have participated in the 27th of June 2009 torching of five buses in Agios Dimitrios by the “Pyrines Skies” (“Flaming Shadows”) group.
This group claimed responsibility for a number of fire-bombing attacks, including an auto dealership in Halandri and a bank and insurance firm in Neos Kosmos. In their statements, the group members explain that they “honor the enthusiasm of Alexis, by continuing the war, the same war that cost him his life, which he never got to know that well”
The police also revealed that two of the four arrested in Velvedo had participated in the armed clash with police in Pefki, in May 2011, and a bank robbery in Filota near Florina, in November 2012. The police found a series of fingerprints and DNA samples from a 2011 investigation in two homes in Porto Rafti and Kolonos, which was never publicized. The four arrested in Velvedo appear to have rented and stayed there for 2-3 months.
The new DNA evidence suggests that the new SPF branch was probably related to the four anarchists who were arrested in January 2011 for an October 2010 fire-bombing of DEI building in Thessaloniki. The four Thessaloniki anarchists were charged with forming a gang and not “participating in an armed group”, which was reported to have annoyed police executives. Three of the anarchists have been set free.
