In Brief
CORRUPTION PROBE
Ex-magistrate testifies in connection with alleged misconduct Former investigating magistrate Constantina Bourboulia, who led a probe into the 1999 stock bubble, yesterday testified before an appeals court prosecutor who is investigating allegations of Bourboulia’s improper conduct. During her two-hour testimony to Georgios Koliokostas, Bourboulia dismissed the claims – that she was having an affair with a lawyer representing one of the firms she was investigating, which may have influenced her impartiality – saying that she had been set up by rivals aiming at discrediting her professionally. ALIAKMON CRASH Thessaloniki KTEL says will settle with relatives of victims The Thessaloniki intercity bus company (KTEL) is willing to reach an out-of-court settlement with the relatives of the 16 people killed in February when a KTEL bus plunged into the Aliakmon River in northern Greece, a lawyer representing the company said yesterday. The hearing of a 1.5-million-euro compensation suit by relatives of crash victim Constantinos Touloupis was yesterday postponed until December 19 after the KTEL lawyer made the proposal to a Thessaloniki court. REBEL MONKS Rapporteur proposes Mt Athos eviction The Council of State is to issue a final ruling during the summer as to whether 93 ultra-orthodox monks should leave the 1,000-year-old Esphigmenou Monastery on Mount Athos after yesterday’s proposal by a court rapporteur that the monks’ appeals against eviction be rejected. Iraklis Tsakopoulos said the monks’ failure to mention the name of Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios – who has declared the monks schismatic – constituted grounds for their eviction. Waste management The second section of the waste management site at Ano Liosia – constructed to alleviate the capital’s acute waste management problem – started operating yesterday. The section covers 77,000 square meters of the 257,000 square-meter site and has a capacity of 1.75 million cubic meters of trash. It is due to operate for a minimum of eight months during which time other sections are due to open. Bank blast A homemade explosive device, comprising four gas canisters tied together, detonated just before 3.30 a.m. yesterday outside a National Bank branch in the Athenian district of Kypseli, damaging an ATM. Police are seeking the two suspected perpetrators whom witnesses saw leaving the scene by motorcycle. Diplomats hit A group of diplomats from Greece, Britain, Switzerland, Sweden and Austria were unharmed after a bullet fired by Israeli forces yesterday hit the vehicle they were traveling in the Gaza strip, Reuters reported. The Israeli army said troops had mistakenly hit the vehicle after firing warning shots at a «threatening» Palestinian crowd, the agency said. Sibling rivalry A 50-year-old man died yesterday after apparently jumping off a first-floor apartment balcony in Kastella, near Piraeus, following an argument with his 48-year-old brother whom he had just stabbed in the neck. Yiannis Milopoulos attacked his brother Argyris with a knife following a heated argument over financial matters, according to police who said the siblings were both shoe retailers in Piraeus. FYROM-EU pact Parliament’s plenary session yesterday ratified a pact designed to increase stability in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and to boost ties between FYROM and the European Union. Hashed delivery Police in Attica were yesterday leading an investigation into what they believe is a major drug-smuggling ring after crime squad officers discovered more than 100 kilos of hashish inside the spare wheels of one of two trucks from Albania they stopped in Mandra, western Attica. Burnt dog A husky dog found badly burnt in Langadas, Thessaloniki after the Greek soccer Cup Final between PAOK and Aris in the northern city on May 17 acquired its injuries by falling into hot tar and not following a brutal attack by Aris fans as was widely reported last week, the municipality of Langadas claimed yesterday.
