Suspected members of a Greek radical anarchist group that targeted state buildings and foreign embassies got their first day in court yesterday in a hearing marked by protests and verbal assaults on judges.

The trial inside high-security Korydallos prison near Athens was suspended four times and briefly halted as the accused walked out of the courtroom, protesting against stringent identity checks on spectators that included their friends and relatives.

“You will hold the trial before an empty courtroom,” one of the suspected members of the Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei group, Panagiotis Massouras, warned as the nine accused stormed off.

According to the Indymedia website, one of the accused also called the presiding judge “degraded”.

An AFP correspondent said a throng of around 30 supporters shouted and chanted slogans throughout the proceedings, one of them likening police and judges to the SS, the shock troops of Nazi Germany.