Is Greek Neo-Nazi Lawmaker a Holocaust Denier?

Golden Dawn MP Ilias Kasidiaris Image by Getty Images

By JTA June 7, 2013

A prominent lawmaker from the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party implied that he is a Holocaust denier during a stormy debate in the Greek Parliament.

Speaking to parliament on Thursday, Golden Dawn MP Ilias Kasidiaris said that a Greek-Israeli businessman caught up in a massive tax evasion scandal refuses to testify before an investigative committee because of the presence of Holocaust deniers.

“The Jew Sabby Mionis is key to this case,” Kasidiaris said. “He won’t come to this committee because there are Holocaust deniers on it. And indeed there are Holocaust deniers on it.”

Kasidiaris was apparently referring to himself, the only Golden Dawn lawmaker on the committee.

The committee is investigating possible tax avoidance by the so-called “Lagarde list” of about 2,000 prominent Greeks who had money stashed in Swiss bank accounts.

Greek authorities want to question Mionis about an account containing some 550 million Euros ($725 million). Greek media have alleged that the account was linked to the mother of former Prime Pinister George Papandreou.

Mionis has denied this, saying the account belonged to a mutual find that he managed.

Kasidiaris said they could not question Mionis because he was in Israel, to which he emigrated in 2006. “We don’t want to go to the murderous Zionist state. If he sets foot in this country, he’ll face justice,” said Kasidiaris, who rose to international prominence during last year’s election campaign when he slapped a woman from the Communist Party in the face during a live TV broadcast.

Kasidiaris has also read from the anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Greek Parliament.

The remarks reportedly drew strong protest from Deputy Interior Minister Haralambos Athanassiou. According to the Eleftherotypia newspaper, Athanassiou told told Kasidiaris that he could be punished for Holocaust denial under a proposed new law.

Greece is currently debating a new law, aimed at combating Golden Dawn, which would impose stiff penalties for racist attacks and criminalize Holocaust denial.

Golden Dawn emerged on the political scene last year, winning 7 percent of the vote, or 18 seats, in the 300-member parliament. Recent polls have indicated the party, which runs on a fierce anti-immigrant platform, now has about 10 percent of the population’s support.

Golden Dawn has been frequently condemned by Jewish and international groups as racist and anti-Semitic.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO