ATHENS, August 2 (AFP) - Three suspected members of Greece's oldest radical group, the People's Revolutionary Struggle (ELA), were released Monday after completing a maximum 18-month detention period allowed under Greek law.
The three suspects, two men and one woman, were released on bail and will not be allowed to leave the greater Athens area before their trial is finished.
Five suspected ELA members, all over the age of 50, have been on trial for six months in Greece's second major courtroom drama following the 2003 conviction of members of another urban guerrilla group November 17.
Greek authorities swooped in on home-grown radical groups after international pressure to boost security before the Olympic Games which open in Athens next week.
Justice Minister Anastassios Papaligouras said the release of the remaining three -- Angeletos Kanas, Irini Athanassaki and Costas Agapiou -- posed no security problem in the run-up to the August 13-29 Olympc Games.
All five suspects, except suspected ringleader Christos Tsigaridas, a 64-year old architect, have denied any involvement with the group, which officially suspended operations in 1995.
Tsigaridas and fellow suspect Michalis Kassimis, brother of the group's slain founder Christos, are already on bail.
ELA was founded in 1975, a year after the fall of Greece's US-backed military junta. It has claimed responsibility for two assassinations and some 250 bomb attacks, most small, on police stations, US institutions, banks and public buildings.
The ELA trial was initially expected to last two months but has dragged on due to procedural wrangles and hundreds of testimonies. It will be interrupted between August 6 and September 1 for the Olympics.
A Greek prosecutor last week proposed that the court reduce the charges against the five, saying that the central ELA figures who masterminded the attacks were still at large.