Greek anti-terrorism police accuse three over Athens apartment blast

ATHENS (Reuters) -Greece’s anti-terrorism unit has accused three people of participating in a terrorist group, following a bomb explosion which killed a 36-year-old man and seriously hurt a woman in an apartment in Athens this week, police said on Saturday.

Anti-terrorism police suspect the case is linked to anti-establishment guerrilla groups and the blast occurred while the bomb was being made, police officials have said.

Among the accused in the legal case are the 33-year-old injured woman who is being treated at an Athens hospital since the blast occurred on Thursday, and a 31-year-old Greek man arrested after testifying on Friday night.

He is expected to appear before a prosecutor on Saturday.

According to police sources, the man said he was linked to the flat but has denied any involvement in the explosion. He has been arrested in the past in Germany.

Police are searching for a third suspect, a 30-year-old woman.

Evidence collected from searches so far include two guns, bullets, mobile phones and digital evidence, masks, wigs and hand-written notes. The target of the suspected group is still under investigation.

Several left-wing and anarchist guerrilla groups, declaring war on all forms of governments, have emerged in Greece over the past two decades after the dismantling of its most lethal group, “November 17”.

Small bomb and arson attacks against politicians, police, judges and businesses were frequent during the country’s 2009-18 debt crisis. They have abated in recent years but still occur.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Yannis Souliotis; editing by Jason Neely and Angus MacSwan)