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| - Thousands of people rallied in Greece to mark seven years since an anti-fascist rapper was murdered in an alleged ambush by supporters of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn whose trial ends next month. Police estimated that around 3,000 relatives, friends and supporters marched in the area of Pireaus where Pavlos Fyssas, 34, was stabbed to death on September 18, 2013. The people staged a peaceful protest in the street named after the slain rapper and demanded Golden Dawn members be jailed. A court verdict in the case is expected to be delivered on October 7, five and a half years after the trial started. Some 68 members, including the entire top leadership face charges of murder, attempted murder, possessing illegal weapons, racist violence, money laundering and running a criminal organization. Fyssas' family issued a statement on Friday calling for public support for the conviction of Golden Dawn. "We anticipate the court's decision to be a minimum vindication in the memory of Pavlos and all those harmed by Nazi violence," the family said. "On October 7, 2020, we expect people to flood the streets outside the Court of Appeals to shout that they are not innocent." The murder of Fyssas, who used the stage name Killah P, caused shockwaves in Greece and led to an effort to dismantle the party. In December, the trial's public prosecutor sparked outrage when she called for the acquittal of the group's leaders. The prosecutor told the court it could not be established that Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos or over a dozen other senior party figures had directly ordered the murder. A Holocaust denier and protege of Greece's former dictator Georgios Papadopoulos, Michaloliakos has consistently maintained his innocence. He says the party was persecuted by the government for its popularity during the Greek economic crisis. Based on records of phone conversations between Golden Dawn members the night Fyssas was murdered, investigating magistrates had argued the attack was carried out with the knowledge of senior party members. They say it was part of a broader pattern of violence organised by the party against migrants and political opponents -- including beatings of Egyptian fishermen in 2012 and communist trade unionists in 2013. At the height of its popularity in 2015, Golden Dawn was Greece's third-strongest party, winning more than 370,000 votes. But its fortunes collapsed in last year's general election. For the first time in seven years, it failed to win a parliamentary seat. str-chy/lc/har
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