VZCZCXYZ0007
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTH #0059/01 0322041
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O R 012041Z FEB 10
FM AMEMBASSY ATHENS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1437
INFO EU INTEREST COLLECTIVE
RUEHTH/AMEMBASSY ATHENS

UNCLAS ATHENS 000059 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER GR SMIG PBTS SNAR
SUBJECT: Hellenic Police Chief on Security Service Reorganization, 
Migration, C/T Cooperation 
 
¶1.    (SBU)  SUMMARY:  During a meeting on 21 January Hellenic 
National Police (HNP) Chief Ikonomou told the Ambassador that  the 
reorganization of the Ministry of Citizen Protection was far from 
complete, but that the overall goal was to foster interagency 
cooperation across Greece's non-military security agencies.  The 
HNP itself will be reorganized, beginning with the creation of a 
new organized crime task force modeled on the FBI.  The problem of 
illegal immigration into Greece requires political solutions on the 
international level, but in the meantime Greece is sealing its exit 
points to prevent organized crime rings and the immigrants 
themselves from moving on to Western Europe. Ikonomou condemned the 
recent attack on a synagogue in Chania, Crete, and declared no 
tolerance for anti-Semitic and extreme-right violence.  He said 
that domestic terrorism was a top priority for the police and 
predicted that the main terrorist groups would be dismantled in the 
relatively near future.  He reacted positively to the Ambassador's 
proposal to create a local working group on counterterrorist 
consisting of senior HNP and EYP officials on the Greek side and 
FBI and other embassy officials on the U.S. side.   END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.   (SBU)  On 21 January 2010 the Ambassador met for 75 minutes 
with the chief of the Hellenic National Police (HNP), Eleftherios 
Ikonomou, in the latter's office at the headquarters of the 
Ministry of Citizen Protection (MCP).  This was the second in a 
series of meetings by the Ambassador to hear from senior Greek 
officials about the ongoing reorganization of Greece's security, 
intelligence, and law enforcement agencies under the umbrella of 
the MCP, which was formed in October 2009. (The Ambassador's 
meeting with the commandant of the Hellenic Coast Guard [HCG] on 20 
January was reported in reftel.)  Ikonomou became chief of the HNP 
on November 5, 2009, after the previous chief, Vasileios 
Tsiatouras, was unceremoniously and quite publicly fired on October 
22 by the Greek Minister of Citizen Protection, Michalis 
Chrysochoidis.  The Ambassador was accompanied by the DCM, the RAS 
chief, the Legatt, the ICE chief, and an LES interpreter, while 
Ikonomou was unaccompanied. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  This was the Ambassador's first meeting with Ikonomou, 
so he began the meeting by congratulating Ikonomou on his 
appointment, expressing appreciation for the importance of his 
position for Greek society, and wishing him good luck in his 
duties.  The Ambassador also extended his profound thanks for the 
excellent work done by the HNP to safeguard his personal security 
and to protect the embassy's facilities and personnel.  In reply, 
Ikonomou thanked the Ambassador for opening up a direct channel of 
communication.  He commented on the historically close ties between 
Greece and the United States and praised the extensive cooperation 
between the two countries in the area of security.  He stated that 
"the challenges of the times" required even closer collaboration, 
which he pledged to pursue. 
 
Hellenic National Police Reorganization 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Opening the substantive portion of the meeting, the 
Ambassador asked Ikonomou for his assessment of how the 
reorganization of the HNP was proceeding under the plans sketched 
out by Chrysochoidis.  Ikonomou replied that the restructuring of 
the MCP was still in process, but its overarching goal was to 
organize Greece's security agencies in a way that fostered 
cooperation.  He described the decision to create the MCP on the 
basis of the former Ministry of Public Order but to fold in a 
number of agencies that had belonged to other government elements, 
most notably the HCG in its new form but also Civil Defense.  It 
was essential to bring all of these agencies into the same 
structure, so that they could share a common base that spurred 
interaction institutionally and personally.  Personal ties were 
essential, Ikonomou continued, noting that the new Deputy Director 
General of the Greek National Intelligence Service (EYP), Fotis 
Papageorgiou, was a long-time police official who formerly had 
headed the HNP's Counterterrorism Unit.  Ikonomou pointed out that 
he and the Director General of EYP, Konstantinos Bikas, have 
traveled together to Italy and France to hold discussions on 
bilateral cooperation.  In essence, Chrysochoidis was mandating the 
creation within the MCP of a crisis-management system of the sort 
that characterized the various Greek agencies in the run-up to the 
Olympic Games in 2004, when all agencies worked together, many 
officers received training in modern security techniques, and many 
officers served rotations in other agencies. 
 
¶5. (SBU) The Ambassador recognized the importance of close 
interaction between senior agency officials, but asked how much 
progress was being made at integrating the new constituent elements 
of the MCP at the working level.  Ikonomou admitted that much work 
remained to be done in this regard.  He cited the challenge of 
fingerprinting illegal immigrants detained at border points.  In 
Greece only the HNP's Criminal Investigations Directorate is 
 
allowed to process and store fingerprints, but its capabilities and 
work practices are ill suited to the task.  As a result, an 
initiative is underway to speed up access to this information and 
to employ modern technology to store and analyze data, so that an 
official at the border could search against the database and have 
immediate connectivity and results.  It is also essential that 
these databases be linked in some way the resources and information 
held by other countries, including the United States, via the most 
modern software. 
 
The Challenge from Illegal Migration 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Ikonomou described the Greek government's strategy for 
dealing with the challenge posed by illegal immigration.  Most 
important, the borders need to be defended as well as possible. 
This will require close cooperation between the MCP's elements, 
especially HNP and HCG, and the military, including the army and 
the navy.  The biggest problem is along Greece's eastern border, 
since Turkey Is not making any meaningful effort to stop the flow 
of illegal immigrants across both the land and sea borders. 
Ikonomou said that he appreciated that Turkey has its own problems 
with illegal immigration, which is why this is a problem for the 
international community that ultimately has to take into 
consideration the countries of origin.  He pointed out that if the 
Greek authorities detained a Pakistani entering Greece illegally 
from Turkey, the illegal immigrant needed ultimately to be returned 
to Pakistan and not to Turkey.  Given the possibility of the 
radicalization of illegal immigrants and refugees indefinitely 
staying in Greece, the government wants the European and 
international communities to focus on this issue as soon as 
possible. 
 
¶7. (SBU) In the meantime, Ikonomou continued, Greece was taking 
some strong short-term actions.  Most notably, the authorities were 
sealing Greece's exits to Western Europe, especially the ports of 
Corinth, Patras, and Igoumenitsa, as well as the airports in Athens 
and Thessaloniki.  In their recent trip to Italy Ikonomou and Bikas 
explained this approach to their Italian counterparts, so that the 
services of both countries could conduct joint operations, share 
best practices, etc.  By closing the exits, Greece wants to send a 
strong message to the organized-crime rings, as well as the illegal 
immigrants themselves, that they cannot achieve their dreams of 
getting to Western Europe through Greece. 
 
Organized Crime Task Force 
-------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  The Ambassador asked for an update on plans to create a 
new body within the HNP to deal with organized crime.  Ikonomou 
replied that he was in full agreement with Chrysochoidis that the 
HNP needed a task force with jurisdiction over all Greek territory 
that dealt with serious crimes.  The MCP is still studying what 
kind of task force to create, although its outline is taking shape. 
It will report directly to the HNP chief.  It will have divisions 
for cyber crime, homicides, robberies, kidnappings, extortion, 
economic crime, and human trafficking.  A decision has not been 
made yet about what to do with counterterrorism, whether to make it 
a division within this task force or to create a separate 
counterterrorism entity.  The task force will have intelligence and 
analytical sections to collate, process, and study information from 
casework and ongoing investigations that is centralized in a single 
database.  The software will ensure interconnectivity with other 
agencies, especially the HCG.  It is intended to be a "small FBI," 
building up from an initial group of 100 newly hired specialists, 
for whose positions vacancy notice already have been issued. 
 
Chania Synagogue Arson 
---------------------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Replying to a direct question from the Ambassador, 
Ikonomou condemned the arson attack of January 16 on a synagogue in 
Chania, Crete.  He said that the HNP was taking the issue very 
seriously.  He stressed that the police would have no tolerance for 
anti-Semitic or extreme-right violence in any form.  The police had 
been caught off guard, because there had not been any previous 
problems in that region.  The HNP has now instituted security 
measures around the synagogue and is investigating the incident 
fully. 
 
C/T Cooperation 
-------------------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU)  Asked for an update on the RPG attack against the 
embassy in January 2007, Ikonomou stated that combating Greek 
domestic terrorism was a top priority for the HNP.  He said that 
terrorist acts were condemnable from any point of view.  Domestic 
 
terrorism was problematic not only because of its past focus on 
diplomatic missions, but also because of its potential to 
destabilize Greek society.  Ikonomou said that the U.S. side knows 
what the HNP knows about domestic terrorists, because it shares all 
of its information.  He would not predict the timing of any 
arrests, but expressed optimism that the HNP was making significant 
progress and would be able in the relatively near future to 
dismantle these organizations.  He stressed that it was important 
to act as soon as possible, because the groups on the extreme left 
acted as "waiting rooms" for future terrorists and because of the 
increasing intersection of domestic terrorist groups and organized 
crime.  Ikonomou concluded by telling the ambassador that he should 
not hesitate to call him directly if he had any question or problem 
related to domestic terrorism. 
 
¶11.  (SBU)  The Ambassador, reviewing briefly the history of 
counterterrorist training provided to the HNP, especially by FBI, 
DEA, and ICE, urged the HNP to forward requests for training to 
assist with its reorganization and to instill new skills in its 
changing workforce.  The ambassador proposed to Ikonomou that the 
two sides consider forming a local working group composed of senior 
HNP and EYP officials on the Greek side and senior FBI and embassy 
security officials on the U.S. side to discuss on a monthly basis 
the status and requirements of collaboration against domestic and 
international terrorists.  Ikonomou replied that he was positively 
disposed to the idea and promised to discuss the notion with the 
leadership of EYP. 
Speckhard