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| - A Greek court was to determine Monday whether dozens of members of the notorious neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn are to receive tough sentences in a landmark five-year trial described as one of the most important in the country's political history. After passing guilty sentences on Golden Dawn's top brass and other members last week, the court is deliberating for a third day on whether to pass reduced sentences on those without prior convictions. After over five years of hearings, a panel of three judges on Wednesday unanimously labelled the paramilitary party a criminal organisation. More than 50 defendants were convicted of crimes ranging from running a criminal organisation, murder and assault to illegal weapons possession. The top members of the party, including founder and longterm leader Nikos Michaloliakos, could be jailed for up to 15 years. Key crimes carried out by Golden Dawn are the 2013 murder of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas and the beating of Egyptian fishermen in 2012 and communist trade unionists in 2013, the court established on Wednesday. The announcement was greeted with elation by some 20,000 anti-fascist protesters gathered outside. Some of them later briefly clashed with riot police. Greek police over the weekend blocked plans by one of the most important to be convicted, independent Eurodeputy Ioannis Lagos, to hold a demonstration outside the tribunal on Monday. Lagos, a top Golden Dawn organiser who defected from the party last year after his European parliament election, last week said he was convicted by a "scared team of little people carrying out orders and trampling on every sense of law." Michaloliakos has rejected his conviction as a political witch-hunt. "We were condemned over our ideas," he tweeted last week. "When illegal immigrants are the majority in Greece, when (the government) hands over everything to Turkey, when millions of Greeks are unemployed on the street, they will remember Golden Dawn." Twitter later suspended his account. jph/bmm
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