Athens, Greece — A far-right Greek lawmaker has been charged with criminal assault for allegedly punching a colleague on the sidelines of a parliamentary debate on Wednesday.
“We can charge the perpetrator of this vile and barbaric attack, charge him with a serious crime through a quick procedure,” Parliament Speaker Constantine Tassoulas said, adding that parliamentary immunity applies to minor crimes but not serious crimes.
Lawmaker Constantinos Floros is an independent member of parliament who was elected by the small Spartans party in June 2023, but later abandoned it.
The alleged victim of the attack was a legislator from the small nationalist Hellenic Solution party. State television ERT said he required hospital treatment for a broken nose.
The incident occurred during a debate over whether the immunity from prosecution of the leader of the Hellenic Solution party should be lifted following a complaint filed by a relative of Floros.
A prosecutor accused Floros of assaulting a politician. If he is convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. He remained in police custody and is due to appear before a magistrate on Thursday.
Floros was suspended for 15 days over the incident, which was unprecedented in modern Greek parliamentary history. All political parties condemned the alleged attack.
Separately, on Wednesday, Greece’s Supreme Court excluded the Spartans from a list of political parties eligible to field candidates in June’s European Parliament elections.
The decision followed a petition by three political parties to ban the Spartans for alleged links to the far-right Golden Dawn party, whose leading members were jailed in 2020 after being found guilty of belonging to a criminal organization.