Ioannis Lagos, a Greek far-right member of the European Parliament, was deported to Greece Saturday to begin serving a 13-year prison sentence.
Lagos spends his first night in isolation in the high-security prison of Domokos, in central Greece.
Lagos’ request that he be held at a prison in Athens, apparently to keep up with his work in the European Parliament, was rejected by authorities.
Lagos lived in Brussels since a Greek court in October convicted him and 17 other former Greek lawmakers from the extreme-right Golden Dawn party of leading a criminal organization or being members in it.
Lagos was taken into custody last month after the European Parliament voted to remove his immunity, paving the way for him to be sent back to Athens on a European arrest warrant.
Golden Dawn founded as a Nazi-inspired group in the 1980s. It saw a surge in popularity during Greece’s 2010-2018 financial crisis, gaining parliamentary representation between 2012 and 2019. Lagos was a member of Greece’s Parliament throughout this period before being elected to the European Parliament in 2019. He, like other former lawmakers, has now left Golden Dawn.
