Greek police has found and seized an arsenal of firearms and explosives during a search of a storage unit in Pangrati neighborhood of central Athens late on Tuesday.
The findings coincide timely with the bomb that exploded in an apartment of Ambelokipoi central Athens two weeks ago with one dead, one severely injured and the arrest of four suspects.
It was reportedly the owner of the storage who alerted the police after he was cleaning it with the aim to sell it. It was rented for €50 per month since 2008 and the tenant was paying the rent until a while ago, media reported.
Anti-terror units and explosive experts rushed to the scene, where according to police also a laptop was found and confiscated. The seized items were transported to the forensic laboratories of the Hellenic Police (ELAS) for further examination.
According to state broadcaster ERT, police findings consist of :
- four fully functional weapons
- ANFO explosives
- gel dynamite
- hand grenades
- a large quantity of bullets
- materials that refer to the construction of bombs
Among others, authorities will also have to find out whether the tenant had declared his real name or a fake one. The storage unit owner had lost the tenants’ traces and when he visited it with the new buyer he realized that the lock had been changed. He broke it and found the weapons, ERT reported.
There has been no official announcement from the Greek Police so far.
A crucial question the Anti-terror Department has to answer is whether there is a link with the bomb explosion in Ambelokipoi and whether local urban guerilla groups are set to take action again.
Citing police sources, media reported that officers’ first estimations say that there is no connection with the bomb explosion in Ambelokipoi.
It is worth noting that police arrested on Monday a 31-year-old man whose fingertip was found on a plastic bag in the demolished apartment in Ampelokipoi. the young man turned out to be Nikos Romanos, alleged member of the Cells of Fire organization who had been imprisoned for robberies.
It should be recalled that Nikos Romanos had to see his friend Alexis Grigoropoulos being killed by a policeman for no reason in December 2008.
The two then 15-year-old friends were hanging out in Exarchia district of Athens on a quite Saturday night.
Greeks on social media express suspicion about Romanos’ arrest asking how was it possible for police to find a bag with a fingertip in a totally demolished apartment. Some scenarios claim that Romanos may have given the terrorists’ cell in Ambelokipoi a weapon in the past and therefore the fingertip.
