A court in Katerini, near Thessaloniki, yesterday passed down two suspended jail sentences to two men, aged 30 and 32, after finding them guilty of participating in violent clashes with riot police outside the philosophy faculty of the northern city’s Aristotle University in May 2007. The two received suspended jail sentences of 10 months and 17 months respectively. Two other people, a 21-year-old student and a 26-year-old man, were cleared of all charges.

Nine basketball fans were detained late on Thursday and an official slightly injured following clashes between supporters of Panathinaikos and Olympiakos in the opening game of the Greek League finals in the coastal suburb of Neo Faliron. Fans of Olympiakos, which was defeated 69-67, threw flares, plastic bottles and other missiles during halftime as players ran for cover. A timekeeper sustained minor head injuries during these incidents. Around 200 fans clashed with riot police after the game with some trying to storm the teams’ locker rooms and the press room.

A 42-year-old man yesterday handed himself in to police in Perama, west of Piraeus, according to officers who said he admitted to netting 11,000 euros in a bank robbery that he had carried out earlier this week due to serious financial pressures. Police said the man returned 2,400 euros of the loot he had netted in a raid on Piraeus Bank on Monday, saying he had used the remainder to pay off various debts. The 42-year-old was released after testifying before a magistrate pending his trial.

Officials in Nicosia expressed exasperation yesterday over a photograph of a Turkish warship displayed on an official website to promote the Cypriot pavilion at Venice’s famous Biennale arts festival. The frigate pictured off the city of Kyrenia in the island’s Turkish-occupied north, was also featured on official invitations dispatched by the Education Ministry for the world renowned exhibition opening on June 6, according to Agence France-Presse. “This is really regrettable; it is an oversight which is unacceptable,” Defense Minister Costas Papacostas told reporters. “I can’t say anything more... because I don’t know under what circumstances this happened,” he added.

Officials of the Economy Ministry’s financial crimes squad said yesterday that they had confiscated 490,000 packets of contraband cigarettes smuggled into the country from China. The cigarettes had been destined to continue to Britain where a Cypriot businessman had been due to collect them, officials said. The huge haul represents some 1.2 million euros in lost customs tariffs and charges.

Police in Kastoria, northern Greece, yesterday detained a 31-year-old Bulgarian national after discovering five Albanian illegal immigrants hidden in his vehicle. The Bulgarian had been taking the migrants to Athens and had been set to pocket 300 euros from each migrant for the job, officers said.