In Brief
MURDER INVESTIGATION
Probe into execution of brothel owner is focusing on two police officers A police investigation into the execution of one of Greece’s major brothel owners is allegedly focusing on two police officers, one of whom is retired, sources said yesterday. Vaia Zissi, 56, who was found shot dead in her car on Sunday night in Athens, had received a suspended three-year prison sentence for procurement in 1998. According to police, Zissi owned a string of brothels in Athens and other parts of Greece and had been suspected of smuggling young foreign women into Greece and forcing them into prostitution. DIKKI DIEHARDS Four officials file injunction against Tsovolas for pulling plug on party Four members of the «temporary administrative committee» of the Democratic Social Movement (DIKKI) party yesterday filed an injunction against DIKKI founder Dimitris Tsovolas, who suspended the party’s operation last month after it failed to get into Parliament for the second consecutive time. The four accuse Tsovolas of trying to pull the plug on DIKKI without the backing of its central committee. «There is a legal and urgent case for filing an injunction to avoid sabotaging the party’s participation in the forthcoming European Parliament elections and its further operation,» the four said in a statement. DISTURBED SON Mother’s corpse kept for two months A 57-year-old man who kept the corpse of his 85-year-old mother in their Thessaloniki apartment for two months after her death has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, police said yesterday. The son had kept the body of his mother on the bed on which she had died of natural causes, according to police who were alerted by neighbors disturbed by the smell. The unnamed man has been sent to the same institution as his brother, police said. Arson suspect A 26-year-old Thessaloniki man, arrested last Friday while allegedly planting a gas canister bomb on a parked van belonging to a private security firm in the northern city, was yesterday remanded in custody following a joint decision by a local prosecutor and investigating magistrate. The suspect claimed he had been set up. Authorities are now trying to establish whether he was involved in a string of over 60 such attacks in Thessaloniki over the past ten months, which have been attributed to anarchist groups. Dozens of anarchists demonstrated outside Thessaloniki’s court complex yesterday in solidarity with the suspect. Power protest Environmentalists yesterday criticized plans to set up mobile electricity units during the Olympics on islands that are not connected to the national power grid. The Ecologists-Greens group claims that the units, which will run on diesel fuel, will harm the environment. It also maintains that the Public Power Corporation’s plan, approved by the Regulatory Authority for Energy, was drafted due to fears of a power grid failure during the Olympics. The plan affects the islands of Amorgos, Santorini, Kos, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Kythnos, Lesvos, Milos, Myconos, Syros, Paros, Serifos, Sifnos, Skyros and Chios. Ram raid Three youths stole more than 23,000 euros’ worth of stereo equipment from a Thessaloniki store after driving a small truck through the store window, police said yesterday after arresting a 19-year-old. Officers are looking for the youth’s two alleged accomplices. Bridge repairs Piraeus-bound traffic on the Treis Gefyres and Lenormant bridges will be subject to disruptions from today until the end of the month as construction work gets under way, the Public Works Ministry said yesterday. The work will take place between 8.30 p.m. and 6 a.m. daily, the ministry said. Greek-Turkish talks Senior Greek and Turkish diplomats are to meet in Ankara today for the 24th round of exploratory talks on bilateral issues, Foreign Ministry spokesman Giorgos Koumoutsakos said yesterday. Fire chief The Government Council on Foreign Policy and Defense (KYSEA) yesterday appointed Major-General Christos Smetis as the new chief of the national fire service. Outgoing chief Panayiotis Fourlas is expected to take over the civil defense secretariat.
