PASSINGS / Nikolaos Makarezos

Nikolaos Makarezos, 90, one of the leaders of the military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974, died Monday, Greek media reported.

Makarezos, the junta’s chief economic policymaker, served as deputy prime minister and minister for coordination under dictator George Papadopoulos.

Makarezos was arrested after the fall of the right-wing dictatorship in 1974 and sentenced to death for treason -- a sentence later commuted to life imprisonment. He was released in 1990 because of poor health.

With Papadopoulos and Stylianos Pattakos, Makarezos was a ringleader of the military coup that seized power in 1967. The dictators imposed martial law and cracked down heavily on political opponents, imprisoning or exiling thousands, many of whom were tortured.

After a student pro-democracy uprising that the army bloodily crushed in 1974, Papadopoulos tried to slowly introduce some democratic reforms, prompting a second coup by army hard-liners who toppled his government. Democracy was restored in 1974.

Makarezos served in the Greek artillery during World War II in the campaign against Italian forces that invaded the country in 1940. After the fall of Greece to the Nazis in early 1941, he followed the government in exile to Egypt.