A 58-year-old Greek priest, charged with sexually molesting a minor in Barcelona, is to face trial in Spain after yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling upheld a Greek law ratifying the new European arrest warrant. A lower court had accepted the extradition request submitted by Spanish authorities after the unnamed cleric was charged with molesting a young girl between 2001 and 2002, when he was giving Greek lessons to children in Barcelona.

A 32-year-old Lesvos man was yesterday remanded in custody, charged with the illegal detention, torture and murder of a 27-year-old woman whose burnt bones were discovered in a box in his fireplace last week. Giorgos Boutaras was remanded after he allegedly admitted to torturing Efstratia Mamolou but denied any role in her murder. Boutaras blamed his wife Areti Dioladzi, also 27, for the murder of Mamolou, claiming that she had been jealous. He said he had not reported the murder because he was afraid of his wife.

The leader of Cyprus’s Communist party AKEL, Dimitris Christofias, and Turkish-Cypriot administration leader Mehmet Ali Talat yesterday pledged to launch fresh peace talks during a meeting in northern Nicosia. Meanwhile, veteran Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash approved a new coalition administration presented by Talat, who won early elections last month.

State hospitals across the country will be operating on skeleton staff tomorrow as doctors stage a 24-hour strike. Their demands include more state funding for their sector, the recruitment of more staff and recognition of their profession as hazardous.

Descendants of the last Turkish Sultan, Abdul Hamit, are planning to sell off expanses of land in Turkish-held northern Cyprus which they claim to have inherited, according to Turkish press reports yesterday. Orhan Osmanoglou, the great grandson of Abdul Hamit, is allegedly planning to sell a 30,000-hectare tract of land in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, the Turkish daily Milliyet reported.

A 37-year-old Swedish national of Bosnian-Serb descent, wanted by authorities in Sweden for alleged illegal arms possession, was yesterday detained in Thessaloniki following his arrest near the Evzones border post on Monday. The unidentified man had stockpiled two submachine guns, two loaded pistols and a large supply of ammunition during a stay in Stockholm around two years ago, Agence France-Presse cited Greek police as saying.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is to meet German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Berlin on March 21, the eve of an emergency European Union summit in Brussels, it was announced yesterday. Talks will include planned reforms to the Stability and Growth Pact and Balkan matters.

A Rhodes prosecutor yesterday ordered an urgent investigation after an examination of the local land register revealed irregularities. The probe is to focus on two alleged misdeeds — the use of forged documents to change the ownership of a piece of property in one of the island’s main tourist areas, and the destruction of official documents following demolition work on another property. Local land registry staff have been implicated in previous probes.