In Brief
Immigrants – Police, coast guard arrest 82 people for illegal entry Police arrested 31 Iraqi illegal immigrants yesterday in a hilly area on the island of Milos in the Cyclades. This followed the arrest on Saturday of another 29 Iraqis, again on Milos. Also on Saturday, a coast guard patrol arrested the four Turkish crew members of the Orca sailing boat which is believed to have set all 60 immigrants ashore. The vessel was impounded. Meanwhile, six Afghans were apprehended on two inflatable dinghies off the island of Kos early yesterday, while 16 Iraqi Kurds were arrested on Samos. Security forces in northwestern Turkey yesterday detained 283 people trying to sneak across the border to Europe, the Anatolia news agency reported. In Canakkale province, another 450 people were rounded up on Saturday. The people arrested yesterday were from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Iran, Iraq, Morocco, Senegal, Somalia and Turkey, the agency said. Places of worship. Current legislation that requires followers of non-Christian churches to secure a permit in order to open official places of worship does not contravene the European Convention on Human Rights, the Supreme Court has ruled – according to an Athens News Agency report on Saturday. This decision followed an appeal by a Buddhist woman in northern Greece against her two-month, suspended sentence for opening a temple in Halkidiki without permission. But the court found that the sentence should be overturned, as it was unclear whether the place of worship in question was an official temple or not. Officer arrested. A policeman was arrested in the northern town of Xanthi yesterday for possession of 45 grams of hashish. Panayiotis Gougoulidis, 37, who served at the local police station, told his colleagues the drug was for his own use. Collision. Canada’s Justice Ministry said on Friday that it would proceed with an extradition hearing of Russian sailors charged in a ship collision off Massachusetts that killed three people earlier this year. The three, who were arrested in Newfoundland in August, were operating an oil tanker that allegedly rammed a US trawler, killing three of the four Americans on board. The Cypriot-registered MT Virgo’s captain, 2nd mate and deck watch officer are free on bail but are not allowed to leave Newfoundland. US investigators say the 180-meter tanker was moving too fast in bad weather when it hit the 28-meter Starbound on August 5 about 200 kilometers off Cape Ann, Massachusetts. The ship’s operating company says the deck officers neither saw or heard anything unusual on the night of the accident, The Associated Press reported. Meningitis. A 15-month-old boy died of meningitis in the university hospital in Iraklion, Crete, on Saturday. The baby died a few hours after being admitted to the hospital, despite doctors’ efforts.
