The family of an Albanian schoolboy found hanged in a small village in central Greece early on Wednesday yesterday dismissed the official suicide verdict, claiming they had received threatening phone calls a few days before his death.

A coroner who examined the body on Wednesday ruled out the possibility of foul play, saying 10-year-old Stelios, the son of Albanian immigrants who had lived in Greece for over 10 years, killed himself.

But the boy’s mother told police yesterday that a man had phoned her twice last week, warning that her child would be killed.

According to Stelios’s uncle, Niko Semonako, once his parents had made sure nobody was playing a joke on them, they kept him at home under close watch.

On Tuesday he disappeared and, after an all-night search, was found by Semonako in a locked barn outside the village. Fellow villagers said Stelios had seemed a normal, happy little boy.