Forensic Architecture
Published on Sep 18, 2018
Shortly after midnight on 18 September 2013, Pavlos
Fyssas, a young Greek anti-fascist rapper, was murdered in his home neighbourhood
of Keratsini, Athens. The killer and others who participated in the attack were
members of the neo-Nazi organisation Golden Dawn.
Golden Dawn have brutally attacked migrants and
political opponents ever since their formation in the late ‘80s, with most of
their crimes going unpunished through the silent support of the Greek police
aligned to their nationalist cause. Following the murder of Fyssas, a Greek
citizen, the government was finally forced to make a series of arrests.
Sixty-nine members of Golden Dawn, including all of their fifteen
parliamentarians, were brought to trial. Charges in the trial, relating to
events as far back as 2008, allege that even while holding seats in the Greek
parliament, Golden Dawn operated as a criminal organisation. Even as the
ongoing trial threatens the existence of Golden Dawn as a political party, the
Greek courts remain reluctant to investigate the role of the police in covering
up these crimes.
Forensic Architecture was commissioned by the Fyssas
family and their legal representatives to reconstruct the events of the night
from the audio and video material made available to the court. The resulting
video investigation and accompanying report, presented to the Athens courtroom
on 10 and 11 September 2018, brings together CCTV footage, recordings of
communications between police and emergency services, and witness testimony. We
established a precise timeline and reconstruction of the events that led to the
murder.
The investigation established that members of Golden Dawn,
including senior officials, acted in a co-ordinated manner in relation to the
murder, and that DIAS officers were present at the scene before, during and
after the murder, and failed to intervene.
