A drive-by shooting killed two members of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party and wounded one outside a party office in Athens on Friday night, officials said.
The two fatalities, both in their 20s, were shot at close range from a motorcycle carrying two men, Golden Dawn lawmaker Georgios Germenis told The Associated Press.
“A man got off a motorcycle wearing a helmet and shot them,” he said, adding that the attack was captured on a security camera.
Police said no arrests were made but added the counterterrorism squad is taking part in the investigation.
Golden Dawn lawmaker Ilias Kassidiaris blamed the shooting on “terrorists” and said on private Star TV that it appeared to be a well-planned attack.
The shooting occurred amid a government crackdown on the far-right party following the September 17 fatal stabbing of an anti-fascist musician in Athens. A Golden Party supporter has been arrested and charged with murder.
Golden Dawn’s leader and two party lawmakers have been jailed pending trial on charges of forming a criminal group. The party has denied any wrongdoing.
The Golden Dawn, which rose from obscurity during Greece’s financial crisis, is now the nation’s third most popular political party.
The party gained support from voters discontented with economic crisis and on-going austerity measures. However, there have been widespread accusations that it organized attacks on immigrants, political opponents and homosexuals.
The party has become notorious for its blatant anti-Semitic and xenophobic rhetoric, openly displaying copies of “Mein Kampf,” as well as other works on Greek racial superiority at party headquarters.
Party head Nikolaos Michaloliakos has claimed that Nazi concentration camps did not use ovens and gas chambers to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.
Greek Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias expressed “distress” at the fatal shooting of the two young men Friday.
“We will not allow the country to become a ground for the settling of accounts, for whatever reason,” he said, according to The Associated Press.
