Greek fire

Some big news elsewhere in Europe was the gunning down of an investigative journalist in Athens yesterday, 19 July. After initially assuming it was some kind of mafia hit - Sokratis Giolias was thought to be preparing to release a new series on corruption - police have now announced that the 16 cartridge cases came from the same guns used to shoot dead a police officer, Nektarios Savvas, who was guarding a witness in a terrorism case back in June 2009.

The group that claimed that murder was Revolutionary Sect (Sekta Epanastatos). This lot were always different from the other Greek domestic terrorist groups; they have no clear Marxist agenda and are demonstrably more lethal. The Greek police thought they'd got a lead on them with the death of Lambros Foundas in March of this year. Certainly, the group seemed to have gone quiet, and there was speculation that it might have dissolved itself after internal dissent over the shooting of Savvas. However, Giolias' murder suggests otherwise, and it's hard to find anything comforting to say about the capacity and future plans of the Revolutionary Sect.