Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis yesterday stressed the importance of “shedding mentalities that provoke divisiveness and unproductive conflicts” in a statement to mark the 31st anniversary of the fall of the military junta and the restoration of democracy in Greece. Greece’s system of government is “well-established and strong... but its institutions need constant examination and reinforcement,” the statement said. President Karolos Papoulias, who invited 3,000 veterans of the struggle against the 1967-1974 military dictatorship to a function at the presidential mansion, said Greece owed its current system of government to “those (fighters) who did not gain recognition, who did not win anything to replace all they lost.”

A 34-year-old man has admitted to the murder of a 47-year-old Cretan woman who was found strangled and tied to the bed of her Iraklion home last month, police said Saturday. Police said they traced the man through the victim’s mobile phone, which the man was suspected of stealing and using. He allegedly admitted to strangling Dimitra Boikou with her bra before tying her to her bed with an electric iron cable in an attempt to stage a suicide. He claimed to have been under the influence of drugs at the time, police said.

A group of illegal immigrants was discovered in a refrigerated container loaded onto a cargo ship bound for Piraeus, Port Authority officials at Limassol, southern Cyprus, said yesterday. The officials became suspicious after noticing the refrigeration system was operating even though it was registered as being empty. No details were released on the number of migrants in the container or the state of their health.

A former court of first instance judge, believed to be at the center of a trial-fixing ring, left the country last week after claiming that her life would be at risk if she remained in Greece, her lawyer said yesterday. The Supreme Court last month fired Antonia Ilia for a lack of moral standards and gross inefficiency.

Members of the police force, fire brigade, port authority and other security services yesterday staged a protest rally at Evangelismos Square in central Athens, calling for higher salaries, upgraded infrastructure and the recruitment of extra staff. They later marched on to Parliament.

Two people were killed in separate road accidents in the region of Halkidiki on Saturday, traffic police said. A man was killed instantly after the car he was driving veered out of its lane on the Nea Moudania-Sithonia road and collided with an oncoming vehicle. Another man was killed when his car overturned on the Thessaloniki-Ierissou road, police said. Neither of the victims was identified.

Two men, aged 23 and 24, have been arrested for dealing drugs after 4.5 kilos of cannabis and nearly 400 grams of cocaine were discovered in their possession, police said on Saturday after conducting a raid in the coastal suburb of Voula. Officers also seized a 9-millimeter pistol and three ammunition clips.