Greece arrests terror suspect

Police and forensic experts during Wednesday's raid in Athens

ATHENS, Greece -- Greek police say they have arrested a suspected member of the notorious group November 17 -- which in almost three decades of armed attacks have never had a member brought into custody.

Athens police chief Fotis Nassiakos told reporters that a man in custody for a botched bombing attempt last week may be the first member of the elusive group arrested.

Nassiakos said on Thursday that Savvas Xeros' fingerprints had linked him to a car used during the murder of Greek shipping tycoon Costis Peraticos in 1997 -- an act attributed to November 17.

Xeros, a 40-year-old artist, was in a critical but stable condition in hospital after the bomb he was carrying exploded Saturday in Pireaus, Greece's biggest port.

Nassiakos told reporters that officers had found a stash of weapons during a raid on a hide-out in central Athens on Wednesday.

He told reporters that November 17's trademark flag, as well as a "cornucopia" of heavy weapons and ammunition, had been found.

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November 17 is named after the date of a bloody student uprising in 1973 against Greece's then-military dictatorship.

"We found the den of the terrorist group November 17," Nassiakos said. "The den had been rented by (the bomber) under a false name about eight years ago."

On Wednesday, Nassiakos said investigators found two grenades and a .38-caliber revolver in a bag belonging to Xeros -- a gun that forensics tests showed belonged to a police officer killed during a bank robbery in 1984.

Nassiakos said the case was "very serious" because of the connection between the bank robbery and the terrorist group November 17.

Greek authorities suspected N17 of conducting the robbery and stealing the police officer's gun after killing him. A separate gun used to kill the officer was also used in at least six other incidents allegedly involving 17 November, but the officer's gun had not resurfaced until now.

Nassiakos said authorities initially thought Xeros may have been connected with a smaller terrorist group known as the Revolutionary Cells, which used a similar bomb in a 1999 attack that killed a woman.

November 17 primarily targets Western diplomats from countries that offered any support to the Greek military dictatorship.

N17 first emerged in 1974 and has since killed 23 people. Its first victim was Richard Welch, CIA station chief at the U.S. embassy, and its last, in 2000, was Brigadier Stephen Saunders, Britain's senior military attache.

Saunders was ambushed by two men on a motorcycle who fired on him in traffic in Athens. Welch was shot dead as he returned from a party in December 1975.

N17 ranks high on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organisations.