A 26-year-old Albanian man has been arrested in the central Athens district of Kolonos on suspicion of shooting dead an off-duty policeman following a bank robbery on March 5. Officer Michalis Spanoudakis, 36, was killed while attempting to stop a robber who had just held up a branch of the Bank of Cyprus. Police said that the suspect, who was not named, had entered Greece illegally at the beginning of the year and was part of a gang that carried out a total of 12 robberies at banks and post offices in Athens and Piraeus. According to officers, they tracked down the suspect based on the detailed descriptions they received from witnesses.

Unidentified arsonists caused serious damage but no injuries early yesterday in two attacks on two buildings belonging to the Public Power Corporation (PPC). Both hits were carried out using Molotov cocktail bombs. In the first case, the building targeted was in Alsoupoli in Nea Ionia, north of Athens. The second attack targeted a PPC building in Aghios Dimitrios, south of Athens.

Senior officials of several ministries, including those of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Defense and Merchant Marine and Island Policy, are due to meet this morning for emergency talks on the situation with illegal immigration. Alternate Interior Minister Christos Markoyiannakis is to chair the meeting. He has reportedly been meeting with the ambassadors of several of the countries from which migrants arrive in Greece, with the aim of reaching agreement on joint measures to curb illegal arrivals and arrange repatriations.

The Data Protection Authority (APPD) has barred the US search engine Google from taking anymore images of Greek streets for its Street View feature, pending “additional information,” it was revealed yesterday. The authority reportedly wants Google to determine how long it intends to keep its images online and what measures the search engine intends to take to inform residents who may be photographed of their rights.

All of Greece’s courts will be closed between June 4 and 10 due to the elections for European Parliament on June 7, it was announced yesterday.

A 45-year-old man died of injuries he sustained while working at the port of Iraklion on Crete yesterday. The man, who was not named, was captaining a tugboat when a crane struck him. He died of internal bleeding.

Two men from Bangladesh were arrested yesterday on suspicion of kidnapping two countrymen and holding them hostage in an apartment in the neighborhood of Kypseli, near central Athens. Police said that they are also seeking three other Bangladeshis in connection to the abduction. The kidnappers are alleged to have demanded a total 6,000 euros from relatives of the two victims for their release.