President Karolos Papoulias was yesterday fitted with a pacemaker after being admitted to the hospital where tests showed he had an irregular heartbeat. Papoulias, 79, had visited the Attikon Hospital for a checkup. The Athens News Agency cited a hospital spokesman as saying that the president was “in perfect condition.” The former diplomat, a track athlete in his youth, has had no serious health problems to date.

Two people were hospitalized with serious gunshot wounds yesterday after three armed assailants, believed to be Albanian, mugged a car mechanic in the Athens neighborhood of Aghioi Anargyroi. When the mechanic, who was carrying a bag with 10,000 euros, refused to hand over the cash, one of the assailants shot him in the stomach. In the ensuing fracas, one of the other two robbers was shot in the chest though it was unclear how. The other two robbers fled with the cash.

A 68-year-old woman and her daughter, whose age was not determined, were found dead in their apartment in Kastoria, northern Greece, early yesterday. The women are believed to have died of asphyxiation after inhaling toxic fumes released by a malfunctioning radiator, police said.

Police in central Greece yesterday were investigating the circumstances behind the deaths of a man and woman, believed to be Bangladeshis, whose beaten bodies were discovered in a vineyard in Ancient Corinth. The woman is believed to be aged around 25 and the man about 35. The vineyard in which they were found is next to a country road.

Coast guard officials at the northwestern port of Igoumenitsa detained 54 illegal immigrants yesterday following the inspection of a truck that had been due to board a ferry to Italy. Also yesterday authorities on the Aegean island of Samos detained 67 would-be migrants.

A Romanian couple who were arrested last Wednesday on suspicion of selling their baby to another family were yesterday cleared by a court in Iraklion, Crete, after it was established that the child had been given up for adoption legally. The couple was taken into custody after police received a tip-off from a neighbor. The court found that the couple had followed all the legal procedures and returned the baby to its new, adopted family.

Rescue workers yesterday recovered the charred remains of a 73-year-old man from his home in Arta, northern Greece, where a large fire had broken out. The cause of the blaze was unclear.

Residents of Santorini are set to go ahead with the blockade of the local tax office from tomorrow in protest at the failure by the government and the company that owns the Sea Diamond cruise ship, which sank off the island last year, to remove the wreck. The residents say they will continue the protest indefinitely.