THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Greek anti-terrorist police arrested three people Friday in connection with a series of firebomb attacks against conservative party politicians that left one person dead and four injured, authorities said.The predawn bombings in the northern city of Thessaloniki on July 1 targeted the homes of members of Greece’s governing conservative New Democracy party. The 72-year-old mother of parliamentary candidate Afroditi Nestora was killed after a crude bomb made with camping gas canisters exploded under Nestora’s car, which was parked at the entrance of her apartment building.Nestora herself suffered burns and briefly left hospital Thursday to attend her mother’s funeral. Her father and two residents of the building were also injured.Two attacks on the same night targeting other New Democracy party members caused damage but no injuries.“One day after the funeral of Vagia Nestora, the state honors her memory by leading, as we had pledged to do, the terrorists to justice,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is also the head of New Democracy, said in Parliament. “It is democracy’s answer to violence. Democracy’s only answer to violence.”
Greece has a long history of politically motivated violence dating back to the 1970s, with domestic extremist groups carrying out small-scale bombings, usually targeting symbols of power or the property of politicians, police or other authority figures. Many use crude explosive devices, often made with camping gas canisters, mostly causing damage but no injuries.
