In Brief
PRISON HEAD’S CONVICTION
Korydallos governor gets 15-month sentence for abusing female lawyer An Athens court yesterday passed down a 15-month jail sentence, suspended for 3 years, on the governor of Korydallos Prison, Spyros Athanassopoulos, for verbally and physically abusing a female lawyer who visited him at the jail to discuss an appeal by one of her clients. Athanassopoulos claimed lawyer Ellie Rizou had behaved «improperly and provocatively.» Rizou walked out of Athanassopoulos’s office when he rejected her appeal and started lecturing her on which clients she should represent. She said the prison governor then grabbed her and swore at her. SCHOOL SMOKERS Three out of 10 have smoked by the age of 14, survey finds Three out of 10 Greek schoolchildren have tried a cigarette by the age of 14, while more than half of adolescent smokers get through more than half a packet a day, according to the results of a nationwide poll made public yesterday. The majority (65 percent) of adolescent smokers are encouraged to smoke by their peers, while 27 percent try out of curiosity, according to the survey conducted on 6,206 secondary school pupils across the country by the Hellenic Cardiology Society and made public for today’s World No Tobacco Day. RELEGATION PROTEST Ioannina fans block roads Hundreds of drivers were trapped on the Ioannina-Athens and Ioannina-Igoumenitsa national roads yesterday evening after residents of the northwestern town blocked the two highways with municipal garbage trucks, cars and motorcycles in protest at yesterday’s relegation of local soccer team PAS Yannena to Greek soccer’s second division. Protesters were threatening to visit the town of Volos tomorrow to disrupt the playoff match Ionikos instead of the relegated Ioannina team will be playing with second-division Kalamaria to determine who will play in first division next season. PAS Yannena was relegated over unpaid debts to players. Athens loan The Athens municipal council late on Thursday agreed to apply for an unprecedented loan of 180 million euros in order to pay off old debts and fund an ambitious portfolio of projects. Policeman arrested A policeman has been arrested for allegedly taking bribes to allow Albanian nationals into Greece with forged documents, police in northern Greece said yesterday. Officers tracked down E.T., based at the Krystallopigi police station in Florina, after three Albanians told them a fellow Albanian had instructed them to report to him prior to the inspection of their passports. The officer was to have received 600-800 euros from each of them, police said. Stone-throwers Two young men yesterday confessed to throwing stones at cars on the Attiki Odos from a bridge in Gerakas, east of Athens, in the early hours of Wednesday, police said. Demosthenes Bahos, 20, who is unemployed, and a 17-year-old student identified only as E.A. caused damage to three taxis and two other cars, though none of the drivers were injured and no accidents were provoked by the stone-throwing. Road accidents There were 28.1 percent fewer road accidents on Greek roads this March than in March of last year, according to National Statistical Service figures made public yesterday. There were a total of 1,043 accidents this March – of which 111 were fatal – as compared to 1,451 in March 2002, of which 127 were fatal. Israeli visit Greek armed forces chief Lieutenant-General Giorgos Antonakopoulos arrives in Israel tomorrow for his first official visit to the country, the general chiefs of staff said yesterday. Papadopoulos visit Opposition New Democracy honorary chairman Constantine Mitsotakis yesterday criticized Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos for participating in ruling PASOK’s central committee meeting in Athens this week, saying Papadopoulos «made a mistake in getting involved in Greek domestic affairs in such a clumsy way.» He ascribed Papadopoulos’s presence at the party gathering to inexperience. Papadopoulos’s office refused to comment on Mitsotakis’s remarks.
