Nikos Michaloliakos, the leader of the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, has been released from prison less than halfway into his sentence.
The far-right politician and Holocaust denier was allowed by a judicial council to serve the remainder of his 13-year sentence in the confines of his home on health grounds on Friday, state media reports.
The 67-year-old’s conditional release after five years in prison has angered left-wing parties, arguing the judiciary should not have shown clemency.
It is the second time Michaloliakos has been allowed out following his 2020 conviction over a litany of violent attacks on immigrants and political opponents perpetrated by Golden Dawn supporters.
He was briefly released in May 2024, news agency AFP reports, before judicial officials found he had not shown adequately good behaviour and forced him to return to prison.
Michaloliakos founded and presided over a party which was found to be a criminal organisation tied to the murder of an anti-fascist musician, as well as the attempted murder of Egyptian fishermen and communist activists.
It came third in Greece’s 2012 elections on an anti-immigrant, nationalist vote fuelled by economic hardship due to the country’s financial crisis.
Michaloliakos himself has been an admirer of Nazism and gave the Hitler salute at party rallies. While Golden Dawn officially denied being a neo-Nazi movement, it adopted Nazi-influenced iconography.
He and its former MPs were found guilty of running or belonging to the criminal group.
Greece’s New Left party said in a statement to state media that Michaloliakos’s release was “a serious blow to the collective memory and the struggle for democracy and justice”, adding that the justice system “cannot send a message of impunity to those who embodied hatred and fascism”.
The nation’s communist party KKE said the decision should be overturned, adding Golden Dawn’s “crimes are not time-limited in the consciousness of the people and the youth”.
