There was a militant group in Greece that did that vigilante-style (since the Greek government refused / was unable to carry out any kind of prosecutions), "17

There was a militant group in Greece that did that vigilante-style (since the Greek government refused / was unable to carry out any kind of prosecutions), "17 November", named after the date of an uprising [1] against the CIA-supported military government. They successfully assassinated the Athens CIA station chief (the only time a CIA station chief has been killed on duty), and promptly got labeled a terrorist organization. Arguably they did actually become one later, when they broadened their assassination campaign to a broad range of prominent Greek figures rather than the early focus on only targeting intelligence agents (both American ones and their Greek contacts). But early on they were very popular, because people like Richard Welch [2] were seen by many Greeks as legitimate military targets. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Polytechnic_uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Polytechnic_uprising [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Welch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Welch