Greece to Free Leaders of 7-Year Dictatorship : Politics: The pardon is greeted with anger by those who were jailed or exiled by the junta.

Greece’s conservative government said Friday that it is freeing the army officers who were sentenced to death by firing squad for seizing power in 1967 and running a brutal military dictatorship for the next seven years.

The announcement outraged socialists, Communists and other leftists, thousands of whom were jailed or exiled during the dictatorship. Many politicians and other citizens were tortured.

Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis proposed the pardon for humanitarian reasons after meeting with President Constantine Caramanlis. Mitsotakis himself had been placed under house arrest by the junta and eventually escaped to self-imposed exile in Paris during the dictatorship.

Andreas Papandreou, whose Socialist government ruled from 1981 to 1989, denounced the decision. “The move to free the dictators is an insult to the memory of the Greek people and the struggle for democracy,” he said.

Papandreou was jailed by the colonels for eight months and freed only after strong international pressure. He was then exiled and lived abroad until returning when democracy was restored in 1974.

Justice Minister Athanassios Kanellopoulos said the ministry’s pardons committee will discuss the pardon Monday and approval is expected.

According to practice, a pardon is proposed by the government and approved by the committee, clearing the way for a presidential decree.

Mitsotakis, who formed the first conservative government since 1981 after April elections, said that seven of the eight former military leaders would be freed.

Eight members of the junta are serving prison terms ranging from 20 years to life imprisonment for their roles in the military coup.

The men to be released were originally sentenced to death for high treason, but their sentences were commuted in 1975. They have refused to apply for pardons.

They include George Papadopoulos, 71, who as army colonel masterminded the April, 1967, coup and declared himself president; his brother Constantine Papadopoulos, 69; and his vice presidents, Brig. Gen. Stylianos Pattakos and Col. Nikolaos Makarezos.

Only former Brig. Gen. Dimitrios Ioannides, 67, who joined the coup and then ousted Papadopoulos from power in 1973, would stay in jail, Mitsotakis said. Ioannides is serving a life sentence.

Ioannides kept the junta in power until July, 1974, and is still loathed by many for inspiring a short-lived coup on the independent and predominantly Greek-speaking island of Cyprus.

That coup in 1974 provoked a quick Turkish invasion and led to the island’s military partition.

Mitsotakis said he decided “to set in motion the process for granting pardons on grounds of clemency” to those involved in the 1967 coup.

Political commentators were at a loss to explain the move but pointed to the fact that the former dictators were in their 70s and in failing health.

During the bloodless 1967 revolt, scores of tanks took up positions throughout Athens and thousands of people were rounded up and herded into soccer stadiums.

The officers suppressed democratic rule and brought to a close one of the most turbulent post-World War II chapters in Greece, when feuding political parties had virtually paralyzed the country.

Papadopolous vowed at the time: “There is no possibility of democracy as practiced in the past ever returning to Greece.”

In response to the pardon of the officers, Fotis Kouvelis, secretary general of the Greek Left party, said: “Democracy must not show clemency to the very people who destroyed and insulted it.”

BACKGROUND

George Papadopoulos, 71, a highly decorated officer with 27 years in the military, is being held at the Korydallos maximum security prison in Athens. “He is an old man now,” a prison official said. “His vision has deteriorated and he rarely speaks to anyone. Still he wakes up very early and makes his bed the military way.” When a counter-coup by King Constantine failed in 1967, the king and Prime Minister Constantine Kollias fled into exile and Papadopoulos became prime minister. Papadopoulos abolished the monarchy in June, 1973, and a month later named himself president of a new republic for an eight-year term he never served. His downfall came when he called troops to crush a student uprising in Athens in November, 1973. About 50 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured.