A 31-year-old laborer was killed yesterday while helping to paint the offices of the Municipality of Aghios Dimitrios in southern Athens. The Pakistani man had been painting in the elevator shaft when the elevator began moving and caused him to fall four floors. Firefighters helped extract the 31-year-old but he was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. It was not immediately clear why the elevator was operating while work was still going on. Police are investigating the incident.

Vassilis Palaiocostas, the criminal suspected of kidnapping businessman Giorgos Mylonas in Thessaloniki, is due to appear before a prosecutor in the northern city for a second time today. Palaiocostas, who had been Greece’s most wanted fugitive, was charged with three criminal offenses and six misdemeanors late on Friday. Seven other suspects have also been arrested in connection with the kidnapping and they are due to begin appearing before the prosecutor from tomorrow.

Relatives of dozens of people killed during last summer’s forest fires in Ileia, in the Peloponnese, held memorial services yesterday to mark one year since the blaze devastated the area. On Friday, the government defended its record in providing aid to the victims of the blaze.

A 38-year-old man allegedly shot his partner with a hunting rifle and then used the weapon to kill himself at their home in the northeastern Athens suburb of Gerakas on Saturday. Police said the incident occurred at about 11 p.m. after the man had argued with his 42-year-old partner. The names of the couple were not released.

PASOK MP Petros Efthymiou was discharged from Evangelismos Hospital on Saturday after being attacked with a metal bar outside his office in the central Athens district of Exarchia. He was shown a series of mugshots by the police but was unable to recognize his attacker who remains at large.

Four members of a suspected human trafficking ring were arrested in Athens, police said on Saturday. A 23-year-old Ukrainian woman who they allegedly forced into prostitution was freed from an apartment in Kallithea, southern Athens. Two of the suspects are from Ukraine, one from Uzbekistan and one from Greece, police said. A dermatologist in Odessa is suspected of being the ringleader of the trafficking ring.

The Education Ministry is expected to announce by Wednesday at the latest the pass marks required for senior high school students to gain places at universities and technical colleges.

A 17-year-old has been arrested in Thesprotia, northwestern Greece, on suspicion of repeatedly trying to set fire to brush and forest land. Police said the teenager admitted to five cases of arson.