Heather Saunders described the defendants as 'mad men'

The alleged killers of British military attache Stephen Saunders should be given harsh prison sentences, his widow has told a court.

Heather Saunders appeared at the trial of 19 members of the Greek extremist group November 17 in Athens on Monday.

"They are not Greeks," she told the special court set up for the trial. "They are mad men."

Two of the group - Savvas Xiros and Dimitris Koufodinas - have been charged with the murder of Brigadier Saunders three years ago. Two others have been charged as accomplices.

Brigadier Saunders became the last victim of the group when he was gunned down on an Athens motorway on his way to work on 8 June, 2000.

"My husband was a perfectly innocent man but he was denied, two years from retirement, walking his two daughters down the aisle (in marriage) one day," Mrs Saunders told the court.

To shoot someone in cold blood takes a weird personality Heather Saunders Widow of Brig Saunders

"I don't want these people put up against a wall and shot. I think they should be given stiff prison sentences and denied their freedom."

November 17 said Brigadier Saunders was killed for involvement in Nato air strikes in Kosovo in 1998.

The group also said the diplomat was in the British air force.

The defendants have denied individual charges while taking "political responsibility" for the group's overall actions.

Radical

November 17 has been blamed for killing 23 Greeks and foreigners in a 27-year reign of terror.

It took its name from a bloody student uprising in 1973 during Greece's 1967 to 1974 military rule. The radical leftists' attacks were aimed at overthrowing capitalism.

Mr Koufodinas' wife Angeliki Sotiropoulou, the only female guerrilla suspect, and November 17's alleged leader, French-born academic Alexandros Giotopoulos, 59, are charged as accomplices.

Police dismantled the group last summer, following a failed bomb blast and the first-ever arrest of a suspected member.

The trial, in its third month, continues.