APPREHENDED
- Full name: Dimitros Sofianos
- Pseudonym: N/a
- Alternatives: N/a
- Location: Greece
- Affiliation: Epsilon Faction [OE]
Dimitris Sofianos (°ca 1963) was an unemployed software specialist from the Greek city of Kalamata who founded and subsequently led the Epsilon Faction [OE; Omadá Epsilon].1 He was devoted to Hellenistic revivalism and worshipped Zeus.2 Sofianos set up a website devoted to Hellenist revivalism and attracted a small following among Greek nationalists.3 He rejected Christianity and Greek government institutions, railed against Jewish and Masonic plots to exterminate the Greek people and called for a war to restore Hellenism.4 Over time, he recruited some of his online followers into the OE.5
By the fall of 2015, Sofianos and his associates had agreed to switch to violent tactics. Sofianos masterminded the group’s bomb attacks on a bank in Kalamata and a statue of a Byzantine emperor in nearby Mystras.6 He was apprehended along with four other OE members at a camp site the next day.7 Police seized weapons and explosives from his home.8
Sofianos acknowledged that the attacks were a mistake in a 2016 interview with journalists.9 He also minimized the action and claimed that he was being treated unjustly. In September 2018, Sofianos was sentenced to more than fourteen years in prison by a court in Kalamata.10
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