Nikos Beloyannis

Nikos Beloyannis (Greek: Νίκος Μπελογιάννης) (1915 - March 30, 1952) was a Greek resistance leader and leading cadre of the Greek Communist Party. He was born in Amaliada (Peloponnese, Greece) in 1915. He came from a relatively prosperous family and went on to study Law in Athens, but before being able to graduate he was arrested and jailed in the Akronauplia prison (Nauplion) by the Ioannis Metaxas regime in the 1930s and transferred to the Germans after the Axis occupation of Greece (1941). He escaped in 1943 and joined the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS) in Peloponnese in the side of Aris Velouchiotis. After becoming Political Commissioner of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) during the Greek Civil War he was one of the last to leave the country (1949) after its defeat. He is reputed to have authorised the massacre at Meligala.

In June 1950 Beloyannis returned to Greece in order to re-establish the Athens organization of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) that had been declared illegal. He was arrested on December 20, 1950 and was taken before a court-martial on charges of violating Compulsory Law 509/1947, which criminalized KKE. He was also accused of being a traitor, transmitting information to the Soviet Union.

The Beloyannis trial started in Athens on October 19, 1951. In total, 94 people were accused. One of the three members of the court-martial was Georgios Papadopoulos who later (1967) became the leader of the military dictatorship of 1967-1974.

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