"I still haven't understood why they killed him," Stephanie Tsantes, 37, told the Athens court trying the suspects over a string of political murders on Greek soil since 1975.

In a proclamation issued after the November 1983 assassination of Tsantes and his driver, the group said it killed him because he had allegedly supervised the installation of US Pershing missiles in Italy.

"He served his country... he has nothing to do with what they accuse him of," Tsantes said, adding that her father had never lived in Italy.

Tsantes, a US citizen of Greek origin, said she and her family expected the outcome of this trial to regain pride in their Greek roots.

Nicholas Tsantes, 43, said he had to battle to forget the pain of his father's murder.

The radical Marxist November 17 group is held responsible for the murders of 23 intelligence, military and diplomatic officials in Greece between 1975 and 2000.

None of the 19 suspects is accused of having pulled the trigger on Tsantes, although the group's alleged ringleader Alexandros Yiotopoulos is accused of instigating the assassination.

Yiotopoulosa, 59-year-old, French-born translator who faces around 1,000 individual charges, denies any involvement with the group.

November 17 evaded security forces for over a quarter of a century. It was only last year that the Greek authorities -- under pressure to improve security ahead of the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004 -- captured their first suspects.

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