Officer’s release trigers street riots
The sister of a 22-year-old Gypsy shot dead by a policeman after he failed to stop for a routine traffic check last Wednesday wails outside the main Athens courts complex yesterday. Gypsies in Zefyri, western Athens – where the shooting took place – set up roadblocks, stoned a police car and other vehicles, and lit fires in the streets yesterday after officer Giorgos Tilianakis, 32, was released on bail. Tilianakis claims his gun went off accidentally and that he thought Marinos Christopoulos was going to run him over. Christopoulos was killed with a bullet in the back of his head. A delegation representing Gypsy organizations called on President Costis Stephanopoulos to protest against the alleged unfair treatment of Gypsies. Sources say that Christodoulakis is looking for a more flexible approach to the stability pact from Greece’s partners in the European Union so as to come to a more realistic fiscal policy that will be able to prevent the growth rate from being burdened further, if not actually support it. According to present indications, Germany, which has come under the greatest pressure in Europe because of the international crisis, foresees a widening of its fiscal deficit to 2 percent of GDP. This creates the impression that Greece, which has forecast in its draft budget a surplus of 1.3 percent of GDP, will receive some room to maneuver.
