Posh Prison

Serving time in style

With impenitent nostalgia for their heyday, the prisoners still address one another by their former titles, such as "President" and "Minister." Their cells are equipped with air conditioners, refrigerators and TV sets. Among their favorite forms of exercise: regular tennis matches, played on a well-kept court. Such is the style of life to which deposed Strongman George Papadopoulos and members of the former Greek military junta have become accustomed inside Athens' Korydallos prison, where they have been serving sentences since 1975. Details of the systematic coddling of the notorious jailbirds are contained in a recollection to be published in Athens this month, titled Prison Diary: Korydallos 1975-79 and based on the experiences of Yannis Papathanassiou, the governor of Korydallos prison until last September.

Explaining that he wanted to "shed light on an aspect of modern Greek history," Papathanassiou reveals how the Justice Ministry itself -- evidently under pressure from junta sympathizers -- regularly ordered leniency and creature comforts for the special prisoners. He recalls that he had to be constantly on the alert for plots to help them escape. He indicates that some of the prisoners even managed to engage in active politicking from behind bars during the 1977 elections; they communicated through their lawyers to boost the fortunes of the right-wing National Front Party against the ruling New Democracy Party of Premier Constantine Caramanlis. At one point, the common convicts became so incensed over the preferential treatment afforded the former dictators that they rioted in protest.

The favored group, including Papado poulos and seven others serving life terms, is housed in A-block, the prison's maximum-security wing. Papadopoulos, now 60, whom the prison guards at first timidly referred to as "the President," resides on the second floor together with mem bers of his old regime. He conducts him self like an "Olympian god," the book says, treating his former subordinates with condescension, electing to dine in regal solitude. For a time, he kept up a correspondence with some of his former girl friends. That did not, however, stop his wife from trying to smuggle him a ration of cognac in fruit-juice cans. It was he who persuaded the authorities to install wiring for air conditioners and other appliances in the cells, which are likened to comfortable studio apartments.

Beneath him in a solitary cell on the ground floor is Dimitrios loannidis, who overthrew Papadopoulos in 1973 to become dictator himself until democracy was restored in 1974. Ioannidis spends most of his time alone, reading military history and books about the CIA. Even so, he occasionally gives parties in his cell that are attended by convicted torturers, members of his despised ESA military police, who reside on the third floor. The bumpkin of the bunch, according to Papathanassiou, is former Deputy Premier Stylianos Pattakos, whose meek acceptance of abuse by fellow inmates and blind devotion to " his President" make him the butt of prison-yard jokes. Pattakos even gets pelted with tomatoes and eggs thrown by other prisoners. He takes solace in religious tracts sent to him by a Greek monk, but he is prone to fits of temper and once, Papathanassiou says, stormed into the governor's office complaining about prison regulations. In reply, Papathanassiou handed him a copy of the rule book, signed by, among others, Stylianos Pattakos.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.