Anarchist-communist Tasos Theofilou was arrested by the Greek Anti-Terrorist Unit on August 19, 2012. At the Court of First Instance (2013-14), Theofilou was sentenced to twenty-five years of imprisonment for the charges of common complicity to homicide and the armed robbery of an Alpha Bank branch in Paros on August 10, 2012. He was acquitted of direct perpetration of homicide, joint constitution of and participation in the Conspiracy Cells of Fire (CCoF), and possession of explosives and “war material.” At the Court of Appeal (2016-17), Theofilou was acquitted of all charges.
In 2018, Theofilou faced the danger of going back to prison due to an appeal lodged before the Supreme Civil and Penal Court of Greece by one of its deputy prosecutors against the decision of his acquittal. The court rejected the appeal, and Theofilou was, definitively and irrevocably, acquitted of all charges.
Theofilou spent five years in the prisons of Domokos and Korydallos. He was a member of the Network of Imprisoned Fighters and took part in a hunger strike (March 2 to April 10, 2015) with a series of demands against the most recent punitive turn of the Greek penal system. A wide solidarity movement supported Theofilou all these years.
In the letter below, which is included in Writings from a Greek Prison: 32 steps, or correspondence from the house of the dead (Common Notions, 2019), Theofilou contextualizes his trial and highlights to social and political importance of his arrest, detention and initial conviction. According to him, they are “manifestation of how a ruthless police state attempts to solidify the most extremist doctrines of judicial repression.”
