Health Minister Mariliza Xenogiannakopoulou yesterday called on Athens’s Evangelismos Hospital to conduct an investigation into the exact circumstances of the death of journalist and newspaper publisher Nikos Kakaounakis, who died at the hospital last Wednesday at the age of 71 following an operation on his intestine. Doctors, who had immediately blamed Kakaounakis’s death on “complications during surgery,” yesterday were reportedly re-examining the deceased journalist’s file. The minister called for the probe following an appeal by Kakaounakis’s family and widespread speculation of medical malpractice in the press.

The sharp drop in temperatures, along with greater rainfall and even snowfall in some parts of the country caused problems yesterday. Flooding was reported in Patra and Rio in the Peloponnese, Halkidiki in northern Greece and the islands of Samos and Patmos. Snow was reported in parts of Epirus, northwestern Greece and in central Macedonia in northern Greece, which meant that drivers had to fit snow chains on their vehicles.

Unidentified robbers made off with a large amount of jewelry after hacking a hole through the wall of a store in the northern city of Serres early yesterday. According to police, the robbers gained access to the jewelry store through a common wall between the shop and an adjacent cafeteria. Later yesterday, robbers stopped a van being driven by the employee of a security firm in Sfakia, in the Cretan prefecture of Hania, and netted some 70,000 euros that had been destined to refill National Bank ATMs in the area.

A 27-year-old man was taken to the Erythros Stavros Hospital in Athens early yesterday after apparently setting fire to himself in his apartment in Kaisariani, eastern Athens. The unnamed man’s mother put out the fire. Firefighters found the man lying on the apartment’s balcony with severe burns. No other details were made public.

Police in the southern Athens suburb of Kallithea were yesterday investigating allegations that a man witnessed a drive-by shooting even though no victims were found. The man said that he saw shots fired from a vehicle at two pedestrians shortly before 11 p.m. on Sunday. The shots missed their target and the car and pedestrians disappeared, according to the witness.

Police in Argos, in the Peloponnese, yesterday detained a 22-year-old Roma man in connection with the death of an 81-year-old Greek woman from a nearby village that the suspect is alleged to have burgled along with another two accomplices.