Alexandros was arrested on December 4, 2010. While he denies being a member of the Cells of Fire, Alexandros was tried in the so-called “Halandri case.” He was found guilty of manufacturing explosives, possessing explosives, and being an accomplice to the explosion at the home of PASOK ministers Louka Katseli and Gerasimos Arsenis. Sentenced to 11 years in prison out of a total combined sentence of 19 years, and chose not to submit an application for a suspended sentence.
On December 2014 was sentenced to 14 more years in the “Nea Smyrni case” (on charges of forming an “unnamed terrorist organisation”). On December 4, 2010 and the days that followed, a massive counterterrorism operation took place in and around the Athens metropolitan area. Among the six people (five men and one woman) later imprisoned were Giorgos Karagiannidis and Alexandros Mitrousias, both of whom had warrants out for their arrest since September 2009 on charges related to the Fire Cells Conspiracy case. Karagiannidis was arrested at an apartment in Piraeus. Mitrousias and another comrade, Constantinos Sakkas, were arrested as they were leaving a garage in the Nea Smyrni neighborhood. They allegedly had a bag in their possession containing two Glock pistols, a Skorpion submachine gun, and a hand grenade. In the garage, police also found three submachine guns, seven pistols of different manufacture, 50 kilograms of ANFO explosive, four hand grenades, three AK-47 assault rifles, a silencer, a large quantity of bullets, and 200 grams of TNT. At another location, were found more than 30 fake ID cards, as well as other “contraband.” Karagiannidis and Mitrousias both denied having any relationship to the Fire Cells Conspiracy. Their arrest warrants, as well as warrants for others, were issued at the end of September 2009 on the basis of fingerprints found at Hatzimichelakis’ home—the notorious “safe house” in the Halandri neighborhood, where everything began. Since all the weapons were clean, the authorities were unable to link the six people arrested on December 4—some of whom don’t know one another and were arrested in different places—to any specific attacks, so they are now talking about “a new terrorist organization.”