A court in Iraklion yesterday cleared a 21-year-old British woman charged with killing her newborn son shortly after giving birth in a Cretan hotel room in July last year. The court decided to give student Leah Andrews the benefit of the doubt, agreeing that there were “attenuating circumstances” due to her age.

In a large-scale police operation in the center of Athens early yesterday, 132 people were arrested. Almost half were migrants who were taken into custody for lacking the necessary papers, another 33 were arrested for drug offenses and 20 for prostitution. Police said that 375 officers took part in the operation.

Another three people were diagnosed with swine flu yesterday, raising the total number of cases recorded in Greece to 73. The latest cases are a 20-year-old Briton, an 18-year-old Greek (both arrived recently from the UK) and a 2-year-old Greek-American child who is in Greece on vacation. Of the 73 people who have been diagnosed with the potentially deadly disease, 27 have made a full recovery. The remaining sufferers are undergoing treatment.

An 85-year-old man was arrested yesterday on suspicion of stabbing to death his 70-year-old wife at the couple’s home in the village of Kallipoli, near Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. Witnesses allegedly told police that the couple were in disagreement about financial issues.

A Thessaloniki misdemeanors court yesterday passed down suspended eight-month jail sentences on three policemen found guilty of dereliction of duty for failing to prevent an inmate who was being transferred to the Diavata Prison from smuggling heroin into the institution. The 35-year-old inmate, reportedly a drug addict, had been one of six prisoners being transferred back to the jail after a court appearance in August 2005.

Police in Messini, near Kalamata, yesterday were questioning a 20-year-old Bulgarian national alleged to have been detaining a 23-year-old female compatriot at his home in the Peloponnesian town against her will since May 1. According to police, the woman managed to get to a telephone earlier this week and call a relative living in Greece who informed her brother in Bulgaria who came straight to Messini and informed police of her situation.

A team of 18 firefighters manning six fire engines managed to bring under control a large blaze at a paint factory in Oinofyta, north of Athens, yesterday afternoon. Locals had reported hearing a series of explosions, believed to have been caused by the combustion of flammable substances.

An earthquake measuring 4.1 on the Richter scale shook Methoni in the Peloponnese late on Thursday but did not cause any injuries or damage.