Man extradited to Boston pleads not guilty to stealing evidence about brother’s antisemitic arson

Alexander Giannakakis, 37, pleaded not guilty in federal court to absconding with evidence that his brother, the prime suspect in a string of arson attacks on synagogues in Massachusetts, was antisemitic.

Giannakakis, who reportedly was working security at the U.S. embassy in Stockholm when he was arrested in 2022, is accused of fleeing the country with materials from his brother’s storage unit in Massachusetts and later lying to investigators.

The defendant’s brother, who died in 2020, was accused of setting fires at a Chabad center in Arlington, Mass. (on May 11 and May 16, 2019); at a Chabad center in Needham, Mass.; and at a Jewish business in Chelsea, Mass. (May 26, 2019).

Giannakakis allegedly took clothing with swastikas, his brother’s passport, a notebook of his brother’s and a bottle of cyanide from a storage unit that he hid from investigators.

He is due in court again on Feb. 22. He faces up to 76 years in prison, 15 years of supervised release and $1.25 million in fines for five offenses.