Greek finance deputy gets bullet in mail
Greece's deputy finance minister received a mailed envelope containing a bullet and a threatening letter comparing him to Nazi collaborator.
|||Athens - Greece's deputy finance minister on Monday received a mailed envelope containing a bullet and a threatening letter comparing him to a wartime collaborator with Nazi Germany, the Greek finance ministry said.
The letter's contents, which were released by the ministry, called deputy finance minister Tryfon Alexiadis a “collector of the Wehrmacht”, a reference to the armed forces of Nazi Germany that occupied Greece during World War Two.
Alexis Tsipras' leftist government was re-elected in September on a mandate to implement bailout measures that he had promised to cancel when he was in opposition.
Many Greeks have blamed present-day Germany, Europe's paymaster, for the austerity programmes linked to the country's 86 billion euro international bailout agreed in August.
“Until the hour 0, you and your family will know what fear means,” read the single-page letter read typed in bold. It was signed with a red star by a previously-unknown group called “Kokkini Fraxia”, loosely translated as Red Faction.
An urban guerrilla group called the Red Army Faction led armed attacks on politicians, industrialists and soldiers in the 1970s and 1980s in then West Germany. Its logo was a red star with a superimposed automatic pistol.
Police said they were investigating the threatening letter.
Greece has a long history of political violence. Such threats and attacks, mostly causing damage but no injuries, have picked up in recent years as the country has pursued austerity policies to tackle its deepest economic crisis since World War Two.
Greece's central bank chief received two rifle bullets and a threatening letter in a mailed envelope two years ago. In 2013, the finance minister received a similar letter containing a bullet, as a warning against planned home foreclosures.
Reuters
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