Parliament yesterday voted against lifting the immunity of a New Democracy MP accused of the “murder with possible intent” of a boy who died when a building the MP was responsible for constructing collapsed during the 1999 Athens earthquake. Athanassios Katsiyiannis, ND deputy for Attica, who was supervising engineer of the three-story building on 140 Aristotelous Street in Aharnes, western Athens, was spared prosecution by 38 votes to eight, with two blank votes. He could only have been charged had Parliament broken with its tradition and agreed to lift his immunity. Christos Bakas, 5, was in a kindergarten on the first floor when the building collapsed.

A Piraeus court yesterday acquitted shipowner Vangelis Ventouris of the attempted murder of his competitor, shipowner Costas Agapitos, in July 1998. But the court decided not to grant Ventouris financial compensation for his six-month pre-trial detention in Korydallos Prison. Agapitos had said he was shot four times by a motorbike passenger, whom he claimed to have identified as Ventouris, while he was in his car.

A 31-year-old man was being treated for third degree burns at a Thessaloniki hospital yesterday following Monday’s explosion at a Kozani gas station in which one person was killed. The condition of Ilias Patikas, who suffered burns on 86 percent of his body, is extremely serious, doctors said yesterday. Gas station owner Lazaros Bokas, 55, died in the blast in which two other people were slightly injured. The explosion also destroyed 60 cars in an underground car garage, and necessitated the evacuation of a four-story office block above the gas station. The cause of the blast was unclear.

An extra 500 full-time doctors will be hired by the Social Security Foundation (IKA), Labor Minister Dimitris Reppas said yesterday. The new IKA doctors will not have the right to run their own surgery alongside their IKA duties, Reppas said. IKA doctors, who have been demanding permanent status for 5,500 doctors on short-term contracts, have planned a 48-hour strike for November 25 and 26.

Publisher Christos Lambrakis is to undergo heart surgery today at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center in Athens. Lambrakis, 68, who owns the Nea and Vima daily newspapers, had been hospitalized following a heart attack in May.

At least seven suspected November 17 terrorists held in the Athens Korydallos Prison pending trial will start a 48-hour hunger strike today to protest against their detention conditions. N17 suspect Theologos Psaradellis, who had been transferred to an Athens hospital to have an eye problem treated, returned to Korydallos yesterday.

A 15-year-old pupil committed suicide at the Nea Zichni village school in Serres yesterday morning. The girl, identified as M.G., was declared dead on arrival at the Serres prefectural hospital. The way she died was not announced.

A herd of sheep in the region of Traganos in Ileia, western Peloponnese, has been infected with anthrax, yesterday’s Ta Nea daily reported. There have been no prior cases of anthrax poisoning in animals in Ileia, although there were in Thrace a few years ago, the paper said.

Traffic will be suspended on the Athens Attiki Odos between the junctions of Metamorphosis and Kymis streets tomorrow and Friday from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Also, traffic will be suspended on the section of Vari-Koropi Ave between Cyclades and Lamptron streets in Koropi from 10.30 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. daily from today until December 31.

A diver, Efthymios Tsaousis, was yesterday being treated for injuries sustained from decompression sickness — known as “the bends” — after surfacing from a shell fishing expedition off the uninhabited eastern Aegean islet of Kalolimnos, the Merchant Marine Ministry said.