"We denounce to the people of Thessaly and all of Greece the treacherous acts of General Sarafis and Major Kostopoulos, fully proven by the confiscated file of both Officers.
1) Commander Sarafis had a permit to travel throughout Greece, signed by the service of Tzelozos and traveling legally as far as Thessaly, he presented himself at the Carabinieri of Larissa - Trikala, where he was received by the Italian officers. It is known that, not a permanent Commander and even a well-known cinematographer, and not even the last reserve officer, Nurse Practitioner or Nurse Pharmacist obtain a travel permit from an Italian Authority even by passing from Larissa to Trikkala or from Volos to Larisa. The magnanimous permission of Jellozo was granted to Mr. Sarafin, because Mr. Sarafis will certainly serve the interests of the conquered.
2) During the past month, Mr. Sarafis was arrested four times by the Italians and released four times. It is known that most of the Greek officers were arrested and no genuine patriot among them was released, but only the betrayed and surrendered colleagues (Bekiaropoulos etc.). Syn/chis Katsaros was recently sentenced to death on a ridiculous charge. Hundreds of citizens of Epirus, Thessaly, etc. were sent to Italy as hostages. And yet Mr. Sarafis was released and was granted complete freedom of movement, and in fact in the most dangerous region of Greece for the Italians, Thessaly, because of the guerrilla war.
3) Arriving in Trikkala, Governor Sarafis worked closely with the Legionnaire Prefect Sarantis, the traitorous governor and bailiff of the People of Western Thessaly. The sad Prefect may pretend to be the "secret patriot", but we will never consider the conquered Italians so naive as to admit that they are being "deceived" by the really wonderful agent of the Prefects.
4) General Sarafis, facilitated by Sarantis, went up to the mountains and met with Kostopoulos and his officers. And while this meeting became well-known in Trikkala, General Sarafis was not arrested by the Italians when they returned to Trikkala. He remained as long as he officially wanted in the city and once again ascended to Pindon to put himself at the head of the whole gang of reactionary elements, like Kostopoulos, who instead of beating the conqueror, oppressed the subjugated people.
5) In the first meeting after Kostopoulos and the executives of his team (among whom are E.A.M. supporters, today in the formations of E.L.A.S.) the co- His Sarafis openly confessed that he came to Thessaly as the representative of the unbalanced General Th. Pangalos, with the approval of Tzelozos, in order to dissolve the rebel formations of the ELAS. of Thessaly as "Communist".
For this purpose, the Italians will place 3000 Greek gendarmes at the disposal of Pangalos-Sarafi. The price of this betrayal would be the granting of the Head of State (of the Petain and Antonesco type) to Th. Pagalon and the Prime Ministership to the Governor Sarafin. As a "patriotic" justification under Sarafi that the Italians promised to restore Anat. of Macedonia and Thrace in Greece in case of……. victory of the Axis".
The above was reported on March 24, 1943 by the Panthessal Committee of the EAM for colonel Stefanos Sarafi, who at that time was a prisoner of the ELAS. A little later, however, when he agreed to join and even assume - in theory - the leadership of ELAS, giving him another prestige due to his anti-monarchist-Venizelian state, the above charges disappeared...
Sarafis joined ELAS under the threat of death, indeed previously in the organization of Major Georgios Kostopoulos, also an anti-monarchist-Venizelist and stalwart of the 1935 Movement officer, who had initially joined ELAS, but disagreed and left by founding his own organization (Greek Liberation Effort Army - ESAP). On March 1, 1943, ELAS dissolved ESAP, and arrested Kostopoulos and Sarafis. Kostopoulos was released on March 7 with the intervention of the British Eddie Myers and later went to the Middle East.