its most extreme members to gradually fade from official party affairs. Androutsopoulos finally surrendered in 2005 and was convicted of the attempted murder of Kousouris and another two left-wing activists, for which he received a 21-year prison term. The other members of the squad that attacked Kousouris were never prosecuted. In March 2009, Androutsopoulos appealed his sentence and had it reduced to 12 years, but was released from prison a few months later. Golden Dawn continued to hold rallies and marches, and it ran in the 1999 European election in an alliance with the Front Line party, gaining 48,532 votes nationwide; 0.75% of the votes cast. In 2005, Eleftherotypia reported that Golden Dawn members distributed homophobic flyers during the first pride parade held in Athens. 2005–2020 According to Golden Dawn's leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, the party suspended its own autonomous political activities after 1 December 2005 because of clashes with anarchists. Golden Dawn members were instructed to continue their activism within the Patriotic Alliance party, which was very closely linked to Golden Dawn. The former leader of Patriotic Alliance, Dimitrios Zaphiropoulos, was once a member of Golden Dawn's political council, and Michaloliakos became a leading member of Patriotic Alliance. There were accusations that the "Patriotic Alliance" was simply the new name of Golden Dawn. Activities by Patriotic Alliance's members were often attributed to Golden Dawn (even by themselves), creating confusion. This is the main reason Golden Dawn's members announced the withdrawal of their support of the Patriotic Alliance, which eventually led to the interruption of Golden Dawn's political activities. In March 2007, Golden Dawn held its sixth congress and announced the resumption of their political and ideological activism. In May 2012, WordPress shut down Golden Dawn's official website and blog due to death threats against Xenia Kounalaki, a journalist. In 2018, Ilias Kasidiaris, a then member of the party, declared himself an admirer of the Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and added that the only non-hypocritical European countries were those of Visegrad. He asked why Muslim migrants did not go to Saudi Arabia or other Islamic countries, and claimed "We at Golden Dawn want to give priority to Christian asylum seekers. And, in any event, Greece cannot continue to welcome everyone in. If we ever get into power, we will put economic migrants in jail, instead of hosting them in hotspots, as Syriza does." Kasidiaris later left the party in