Rhodes teacher shoots tourist resort burglar
A teacher of English at a seaside holiday resort on Rhodes was arrested yesterday for shooting and wounding an Albanian national he caught trying to burgle his house. The 36-year-old alleged burglar, whose name was not made public, was hospitalized out of danger with a shotgun wound to the groin. Another two suspected accomplices in the 4 a.m. effort to enter Emmanouil Koufalis’s house at Faliraki, some 7 km (4.5 miles) south of the island capital, through a ground-floor window, managed to escape. Koufalis, 37, who apart from his teaching job runs a rental accommodation business next to his home, told police he had decided to take action after a spate of minor thefts over the past few days from tourists using his rooms. He bought a shotgun for this purpose and hid in the garden of his house to catch the thieves. Faliraki lacks a police station. Koufalis will be charged on Monday.