ATHENS — Greek police arrested the deputy leader of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party on Thursday in Athens, according to a police official.
Christos Pappas, 60, has been on the run since last October when he and other Golden Dawn leaders were convicted of running a criminal organization linked to hate crimes. Pappas was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Police had initially suspected that he may have fled abroad and issued a European arrest warrant. The mustachioed former MP was, however, ultimately arrested at an apartment in central Athens.
Police also arrested a woman accused of offering him shelter, who now faces charges of aiding a criminal, the official said.
Pappas was the last of the convicted Golden Dawn members to evade justice after MEP Ioannis Lagos was arrested in Brussels in April and extradited to Greece the following month.
“The Greek democracy fought and eliminated the toxic poison of the Golden Dawn,” government spokesperson Aristotelia Peloni said in a statement. “With the arrest of Christos Pappas, the chapter of this criminal organization is finally sealed.”
Golden Dawn rose to prominence during Greece’s financial crisis of 2009, becoming the third most popular party in the Greek parliament in 2012. Its support has since plunged, and it failed to enter parliament in the 2019 election. The trial, frequently described as the largest Nazi trial since Nuremberg, lasted more than five years.