Newsgroups: bit.listserv.hellas
Date:         Tue, 8 Sep 1992 17:00:50 -0400
Reply-To:     Anastassiades - Advanced Rotorcraft Technology / NASA Ames
              <tassos@ART.DNET.NASA.GOV>
From:         Anastassiades - Advanced Rotorcraft Technology / NASA Ames
              <tassos@ART.DNET.NASA.GOV>
Subject:      Eidisi
Comments: To: hellas@brownvm.bitnet@6913.DNET.NASA.GOV

Subject: Bonn asks Greece to extradite Stasi officer linked to terrorism
Keywords: international, non-usa government, government, terrorism,
	usa federal, criminal proceedings, legal
Date: 8 Sep 92 16:37:36 GMT
Location: greece
ACategory: international
Slugword: greece-terrorist
Priority: regular
Format: regular
ANPA: Wc: 444; Id: z4419; Sel: grigf; Adate: 9-8-1235ped; Ver: 1/0
Codes: yigfrgr., yiz.rxx., yigwrxx., yilarxx.


	ATHENS, Greece (UPI) -- Germany has asked Greece to extradite a man
believed to be a high-ranking officer of the former East German secret
police with extensive links to international terrorism, Public Order
Minister Theodore Anagnostpoulos said Tuesday.
	The man, identified as Helmut Voigt, 50, was arrested in an Athens
hotel Sunday on a tip-off from Germany, where he is wanted for
connections with the international terrorist ``Carlos,'' also known as
``The Jackal.''
	Voigt was traveling on a passport identifying him as Alfred Herman,
but the German authorities informed Greece the passport was stolen
earlier from a government office in Berlin in May 1991.
	Anagnostopoulos said Germany has informally asked Greece to extradite
the Stasi officer. He said a formal request was expected to be made
shortly.
	Before he is extradited, Voigt will have to be tried in Athens for
entering Greece on a false passport, the minister said.
	The arrested German has denied that he is the former Stasi officer
Voigt, but Anagnostopoulos said he appeared to be very intelligent and
it was very difficult to get any information out of him.
	Voigt is accused in Germany of supplying ``Carlos'' with 53 pounds of
explosives used in a 1983 attack on the French consulate in Berlin in
which one person was killed and several injured.
	Carlos is the assumed name used by Venezuelan-born Ilyich Ramirez
Sanchez, wanted for carrying out a series of high-profile terrorist
attacks in the 1970s and 1980s.
	Carlos led the kidnapping of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna in 1975 and
was believed to have planned the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre and the
1976 hijacking of a French airliner to Uganda that ended with the
Israeli commando raid at Entebbe airport.
	Police said they traced Voigt by keeping his wife Karla, 35, under
surveillance after she arrived in Athens. Karla, who was also detained,
was released after a few hours because police had no evidence that she
had committed any crime.
	The Athens press speculated the Stasi may have had links with the
Greek ``Revolutionary Organization November 17,'' a terrorist group
responsible for killing 18 people, including one U.S. intelligence
station chief and three U.S. military officers.
	But Anagnostopoulos said it had still not been determined that Voigt
had links with the ``November 17'' group, which has been active in
Greece since 1975.
	Greece has recently stepped up its operations against terrorism, and
the Greek media treated Voigt's arrest as one of the biggest catches in
a decade.
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