More than 8,000 people gathered Wednesday outside a Greek courthouse for the verdicts in the trial of leaders of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, police told AFP.
Many carried placards calling for the defendants to be imprisoned as they waited for the climax of one of the most important trials in the country’s modern political history.
The crowd started gathering two hours before the verdicts were due to be handed down from 0800 GMT, in response a call from the anti-fascist movement, trade unions and parties on the left.
“ The people want the Nazis in jail” , read the placards.
Hundreds of police were also deployed at the courthouse, a few kilometres from the historic centre of the capital.
After hearings over the last five years, the Athens court will determine whether Golden Dawn is a criminal organisation that carried out violent attacks on opponents on the orders of founder Nikos Michaloliakos and his inner circle.
The prosecutions were sparked by the late-night murder of a 34-year-old anti-fascist rapper called Pavlos Fyssas, who was chased down by a mob of Golden Dawn thugs and stabbed to death in front of a cafe in the western Athens suburb of Keratsini in September 2013.