By Yannis Souliotis and Renee Maltezou
ATHENS, June 11 (Reuters) – Greek judges on Thursday ordered the detention pending trial of a Palestinian accused of being part of a Hamas-linked network plotting attacks on Israeli targets in Europe and Asia, legal and police sources said.
The 37-year-old suspect, who denies wrongdoing, was detained on June 6 on the island of Crete, in a joint operation by Greece’s intelligence service and police anti-terrorism unit, authorities said.
Police confiscated mobile phones, a laptop and hard discs from his residences and investigators found evidence he had ordered online materials that could be used to make explosives but had not received them.
His lawyer told Reuters the evidence was thin and revealed inconsistencies.
“The defendant’s character, mindset and overall demeanour bear no resemblance to the profile of a criminal or terrorist. Rather, he appears to have been cast as a scapegoat in a case founded on tenuous evidence and riddled with significant gaps,” said criminal defense lawyer Spyridon Pantazis.
The arrest in Greece follows the detention of two Palestinians, aged 32 and 38, in Cyprus on May 22. They are under investigation for terrorism-related activities after explosive-making materials were found during searches, police have said.
According to Greek police sources, the two cases are linked.
One of the suspects detained in Cyprus told authorities there he believed their recruiters planned attacks in Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia, where they received training on explosives, the sources said.
The 37-year-old man arrested in Crete arrived in Greece in 2023 after living for years in Gaza, and was granted asylum. The probe found that in 2025 he travelled to Malaysia where he met one of the men later detained in Cyprus.
The detainees in Cyprus had met Hamas members in Istanbul, the sources said.
Greek Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis told Skai radio on Wednesday that the two cases point to a wider network trying to plan terrorist acts in Europe.
A court in Cyprus on Thursday ordered the arraignment of the two suspects arrested there and a third individual before a criminal court on August 6. They face terrorism-linked charges and membership in an outlawed organisation, the semi-official Cyprus News Agency reported.
(Additional reporting by Michele Kambas in Nicosia; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
Comments