Four robbers armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles carried out virtually simultaneous heists on two adjacent banks in Oropos, north of Athens, shortly before 2 p.m. yesterday. The four gunmen, all wearing helmets, netted an undetermined sum in their raids on branches of National Bank and ATEbank respectively, before fleeing on motorcycles. Earlier yesterday another two assailants robbed a branch of Eurobank in the southern Athens district of Nea Smyrni. One of the assailants used a sledgehammer to smash the facade of the bank and the second threatened cashiers with a Kalashnikov. No arrests had been reported by late yesterday.

The trial of the two policemen charged with involvement in the fatal shooting of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos in December 2008 – suspended last week after the public prosecutor withdrew from the case due to the death of a relative – is to start from scratch on February 17. Court of first instance prosecutor Haralambos Lakafosis has been appointed to replace Vassiliki Vlachou. The trial of Epaminondas Korkoneas and Vassilis Saraliotis is to start again in Amfissa, some 200 kilometers northwest of Athens, with the testimony of the dead teenager’s mother Gina Tsalikian.

A preliminary investigation into the death of well-known journalist and TV personality Nikos Kakaounakis has found evidence that suggests the doctors at Evangelismos Hospital in Athens may have taken some wrong decisions when treating him. The results of the probe have been forwarded to the prosecutor who is investigating the affair. The doctors in question have been called to appear before a disciplinary panel. Kakaounakis died on December 30 last year at the age of 72 after suffering complications from surgery.

Unidentified assailants yesterday morning grabbed a bag containing an estimated 100,000 euros from an employee sitting in a vehicle belonging to the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), police said. The robbers used brass knuckles to smash the windshield of the vehicle that had been parked outside a railway station in Kolonos, near the city center. They grabbed the bag and fled.

The owner of a betting shop in the resort of Ammoudara, in the Cretan prefecture of Iraklio, was hospitalized yesterday after being shot in the leg during an armed raid outside his store late on Sunday. The owner had been leaving his store with a bag containing the weekend’s takings when two assailants jumped him and ran off with the bag. According to the betting store owner, it had contained 5,500 euros.

Police in Athens yesterday were questioning a 36-year-old Albanian man, believed to be a member of a large drug ring, after a raid on an apartment in the northern district of Galatsi revealed a workshop for the cutting and packaging of heroin, cocaine and cannabis. Officers confiscated 3.5 kilos of heroin, 211 grams of cocaine, and more than 1.5 kilos of cannabis.