Police in northwestern Greece were yesterday questioning several members of a hunting party after ballistics tests proved that their claims that one of the group had slipped and shot himself were false.

The 32-year-old man was killed while hunting for wild boar near Arta on December 26. He went on the trip with several members of his family and friends.

Police were told that the man had leaned on his hunting rifle when he slipped on a hillside and that it had gone off, shooting him in the side of the chest.

However, a postmortem examination carried out in Ioannina on Saturday indicated that the man, who was not named, had been shot from a distance of some 20 meters. Police have confiscated all the rifles used by the party in a bid to establish whether the man was shot, most probably accidentally, by another member of the party.

There have been several occasions recently when hunters have been accidentally killed by friends who have mistaken their movements for those of a wild boar.