EU Parliament lifts immunity of Greek far-right lawmaker

BRUSSELS: European Union lawmakers voted Tuesday to lift the immunity of a Greek far-right member of the EU parliament who has been sentenced to 13 years in prison in Greece for being a leading member of a criminal organization.

The European Parliament voted 658-24, with 10 abstentions, to remove Ioannis Lagos’s parliamentary protection, paving the way for Belgian authorities to extradite him to Greece.

Lagos has been living in the Belgian capital, Brussels, since a Greek court in October convicted him and 17 other former Greek parliament members from the extreme-right Golden Dawn party of leading a criminal organization, or being members in it.

The other convicted Golden Dawn members are already in jail, except for one who escaped and is officially a fugitive.

Golden Dawn was founded as a Neo-Nazi group in the 1980s. It saw a surge in popularity during the 2010-2018 financial crisis, gaining parliamentary representation between 2012 and 2019.

The five-year trial was launched following the 2013 murder of rap singer and left-wing activist Pavlos Fyssas, who was stabbed to death by a Golden Dawn supporter.