In Brief
STOCK PROBE
Supreme Court plenary session to take stand on minister’s intervention Supreme Court president Georgios Kapos yesterday called an emergency plenary session for next Thursday to clarify the court’s stance on the intervention by Justice Minister Anastassis Papaligouras in the judicial handling of a probe into the 1999 stock market bubble. The matter raises general questions about the operation of the justice sector, Kapos said. On Monday, Papaligouras defended his decision to pressure Supreme Court prosecutor Dimitris Linos into appealing the shelving of charges against former board members of the Athens Stock Exchange. ANTIKYTHERA QUAKE 5.6-level tremor damages two buildings but causes no injuries An undersea quake, measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale, occurred south of the island of Antikythera, off the southern Peloponnese, just before 8.30 a.m. yesterday, causing damage to an electricity substation and community center. No injuries were reported. Felt as far as Athens, the quake was an «isolated incident,» seismologists said. BITHIKOTSIS Veteran singer ‘stable’ after bypass Veteran Greek singer Grigoris Bithikotsis was yesterday in stable condition after undergoing a triple bypass operation, doctors at Athens’s Hygeia Hospital said. Bithikotsis, 82, is a highly esteemed figure in the world of Greek popular music, having worked with composers including Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis. Commission list Greek lawyer Stavros Tzimas has been nominated as European commissioner for the environment once again in a new list presented by EC President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels yesterday. Doctors strike Doctors at state hospitals across the country are to stage a 24-hour strike next Friday, demanding more staff hirings and an increase in funding. Extradition protest A Turkish Kurd who faces extradition to Germany in connection with an arson attack has begun a hunger strike in the Komotini jail where he is being detained, the Athens News Agency reported yesterday. A Supreme Court prosecutor last month recommended that German national Sinan Bozkurt, who has been in Greece since March following his arrest on smuggling charges, be sent back to Germany. Left-wing groups protesting his extradition are to lodge a complaint with Justice Minister Anastassis Papaligouras today. Mushroom poisoning An Albanian couple from Kozani and their son have been in hospital with severe liver and kidney damage since Sunday after eating wild mushrooms. The family was hospitalized in Kastoria after eating the mushrooms which the father had picked from a farm near their village of Skalochori and the mother had cooked. They were later transferred to Thessaloniki’s Papageorgiou Hospital. Extortion scam A policeman, a lawyer and an insurance broker attempted to blackmail a bank clerk out of 35,000 euros in bills of exchange, police in Thessaloniki said yesterday after arresting the first two. The insurance broker, who was owed 9,500 euros in bills of exchange by the bank clerk, apparently enlisted the services of the policeman and lawyer to try and extort more than three times the amount she was owed, police said. However, the bank clerk informed police, who arrested the policeman and lawyer at a scheduled meeting. They are now seeking the broker. Child abuse A 30-year-old Albanian man, who is alleged to have repeatedly raped an Albanian boy over the past three months, yesterday faced an Athens prosecutor. The man, arrested on Wednesday, allegedly plied the boy with alcohol before taking him to his home and sexually abusing him. The age of the boy was not made public. Car crash A 57-year-old Turkish man and his 15-year-old son were killed when their car collided head-on with a truck on the Thessaloniki-Kavala national road early yesterday morning, police said. The man lost control of his car and veered into the opposite lane and into a truck near the junction with Nea Apollonia, according to police. The truckdriver was taken in for questioning, they said.
