Takis Michas


Takis Michas is a Greek journalist and author who lives in Athens, where he works for the Greek daily
Eleftherotypia and contributes to the Wall Street Journal Europe. He has written extensively about the Greek involvement in the Bosnian war, especially in the Srebrenica massacre.

Journalism

In 1989 he received the European Union Journalists Award for his published columns on the crisis in Poland during the 1980s.
In 2002 he received the Greek Botsis Prize for Journalism for his reports on Slobodan Milosevic’s bank assets in Greece.
He has written articles for the National Interest, The New Republic and Danish and Greek journals. He was nominated for the 2011 Bastiat Prize for three articles: "Greece's Bailout Brinksmanship", "Athens Descends into Anarchy", and "A Greek Tragedy".

Greek Volunteer Guard controversy

In 2010 he faced an action for criminal libel following his reference in an article for Eleftherotypia to allegations that the Greek Volunteer Guard took part in the Srebrenica massacre and raised the Greek flag over Srebrenica. At the last minute Stavros Vitalis, a former Greek officer in the Bosnian Serb Army who considered the quoted use of the term "paramilitary" an insult to the Greek volunteer forces in Bosnia, abandoned the action.
The quality, thoroughness and courage of Michas's reporting of the military support that Greek "volunteers" gave the Bosnian Serb side during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and the reluctance of successive Greek governments to investigate the issue was highlighted in Reporters Sans Frontieres's criticism of what the organisation described as a "surreal" action and a clear case of judicial harassment.