No abuse in precinct fatality
A young man who died on Tuesday after apparently running amok in an Athens police station succumbed to a blood-filled lung and bore no signs of physical abuse, a postmortem conducted yesterday found. But coroners found two little plastic sachets in the stomach of Aristidis Neophotistou, which contained a substance that police believe could be drugs – and is to be tested. One of the sachets had burst. Neophotistou, 24, followed officers to the Nea Philadelphia station, accompanying his friend, Christos Mavrogiorgos, 37, who was temporarily detained to have his identity verified. Contrary to initial reports, Neophotistou was carrying an ID card. In the precinct, police and Mavrogiorgos said, Neophotistou ran amok and started banging his head against the walls. Yesterday, doctors said this could have resulted from drugs leaking into his stomach. Apart from a broken nose, which Mavrogiorgos claims to have inflicted at the request of his friend in order to lower his blood pressure, Neophotistou bore no signs of physical abuse, doctors said.
