MEP Ioannis Lagos was sentenced by Greece in October 2020 to 13 years in prison for being a leader of the Golden Dawn, a far-right political party that has since been declared a criminal organization.The parliamentarian confirmed his arrest on Twitter, saying: "I'm in a Belgian police car. The thieves, atheists, anti-Greeks are taking me to jail. I remain faithful to Christ and Greece. I'm proud that I never bowed down. Long live Greece. Long live Orthodoxy."
After serving with the party in the Greek legislature for seven years, Lagos was elected to the European Parliament in 2019, but announced he would sit as an independent rather than as a member of Golden Dawn.
Due to this, Lagos possessed parliamentary immunity in Greece, unlike the rest of the party's leadership.
Despite being immune from spending time in jail, Lagos was still convicted by the court back in October, following a trial spanning five years focusing on many criminal acts of the organization, one of which was the conspiracy surrounding and the actual murder of anti-fascist Greek musician Pavlos Fyssas, the BBC reported back in October.
Lagos still remained free by escaping to Brussels on the day of the verdict, and had even been receiving a €9,000 ($10,860) monthly salary due to being an MEP. But on April 22, the European Parliament approved a draft proposal to lift his immunity, the National Herald reported.
Lagos had remained staunchly opposed to this. In a Monday Twitter post, he wrote that he would stay "strong and free" and that he would not go "back to Greece in the coming days," according to AFP.
But on Tuesday, his immunity was lifted. A European arrest warrant was immediately put out, and he was arrested in Brussels, with procedures to extradite him currently underway, according to the National Herald.
“It was essential for the European Union to lift the immunity of Ioannis Lagos so that he can face justice in his country,” said French Greens lawmaker Marie Toussaint, who had chaperoned the vote, according to the Herald. "Impunity cannot be tolerated." Reuters contributed to this report.