In Brief
CHINOOK SALVAGE
Engine of fatal helicopter retrieved One of the two engines of an army Chinook helicopter, which crashed into the sea off Mount Athos on September 11 killing all 17 people on board, was raised from a depth of 866 metres early yesterday. Navy vessels and the Aegaio oceanographic research vessel are participating in the effort to raise the aircraft’s fuselage from one of the deepest spots of the northern Aegean. The operation was temporarily halted yesterday afternoon after weather conditions deteriorated. Patriarch Petros of Alexandria and head of the Orthodox Church in Africa was among those killed when the Chinook crashed eight miles southwest of Mount Athos. Evros army deaths A Xanthi military prosecutor on Saturday brought charges against all responsible parties in connection with the deaths of five conscripts who were electrocuted last April while raising a metal flagpole at a military outpost in Evros. The prosecutor filed the charges despite the conclusion of an internal investigation which found that the conscripts themselves were responsible for the accident. The servicemen, aged 20 to 28, died instantly when the pole became caught in an overhead electricity line. Antiquities thieves Two people have been arrested on the Dodecanese island of Kalymnos for selling ancient artifacts obtained from illegal excavations to Greeks and tourists, police said yesterday. Police said they confiscated two marble busts of the god Hermes, 200 bronze objects, including coins and seals, five silver coins and rings, 30 lead seals, three fragments of a gold wreath, two iron daggers and a metal detector. The suspects were not identified. Elderly abuse An 80-year-old Cretan woman who was allegedly abused by staff in an old folk’s home in Iraklion is to undergo a medical examination today, the Athens News Agency reported yesterday. The woman’s son told police his mother had been tied to a bed by her hands and feet, and bore injuries on different parts of her body. The institution, which was not identified, was found to have been operating without a license. Migrants Coast guard officials on Samos on Saturday detained two illegal immigrants who claimed to have reached the island in a plastic rowboat from neighboring Turkey, the Merchant Marine Ministry said.
