His support towards a young prisoner’s demand to be allowed to attend tertiary education, expressed the Greek Education minister Andreas Loverdos, following news on Saturday that the 21-year-old’s health is in critical condition after three weeks of a hunger strike over the prison’s refusal to grant him the education leave. “As far as I understand, following the escape of Xiros, the whole system has frozen… they find it hard to grant furloughs”, said Loverdos at Mega TV on Sunday. The minister claimed, it is “not my authority” to grant Nikos Romanos a furlough to attend university classes, but stressed he strongly supports prisoners’ right to education, adding that he has spoken with the justice minister, who in return promised to “look into” the matter.
Nikos Romanos was sentenced to 15 years in prison in October for his participation in an armed bank robbery, but was cleared of charges of being a member of terrorist group “Conspiracy of cells of fire”.
He was admitted to a Technological Educational Institute in September after sitting university entrance examinations.