In Brief
VERIA INVESTIGATION
Police to question three schoolboys today over disappearance Veria police are due today to again question three of the five schoolboys alleged to have been involved in the disappearance of 11-year-old Alex Meshivili in February. Two of the children have already given statements in the investigation that has been ordered by a local prosecutor. Police sources also revealed that officers have taken fingerprints from the five boys and their relatives and will be checking them against prints found at a derelict building where the children are first alleged to have dumped Alex’s body. CONFIDENCE BUILDING Greek army chief to visit Turkey for talks with military counterpart The head of the Greek military, Admiral Panagiotis Hinofotis, will visit Turkey on July 26-28 to hold confidence-building talks with his Turkish counterpart Hilmi Ozkok, the army said in a statement yesterday. The talks will aim to «develop mutual understanding, an atmosphere of trust and exchanging ideas on common interests.» WIFE MURDER Suspect caught after 15 years on run A 40-year-old man from Serres, northern Greece, who is suspected of murdering his wife 15 years ago went on trial in Iraklion, Crete, yesterday. The unnamed suspect is alleged to have killed his Cypriot wife in Thessaloniki in 1991. Police think that he fled the city after the murder and has been living in virtual seclusion on Crete ever since. He was stopped at a routine traffic check on Tuesday and officers discovered that he was using a stolen identity card and had given police false details. After his trial in Crete for possessing false papers, he will be taken to Thessaloniki to face murder charges. Publisher jailed The far-right publisher Grigoris Michalopoulos yesterday had his 18-year jail sentence for attempted blackmail commuted to nine years at an Athens appeals court. Michalopoulos, the publisher of the Eleftheri Ora newspaper, was jailed last April for blackmailing two of Greece’s biggest businessmen, Theodoros Angelopoulos and Yiannis Latsis, by telling them they were targets of the November 17 terrorist group and demanding large sums to have them removed from its hit list. Camera flash Arsonists set fire to a traffic camera on Vouliagmenis Avenue in Voula, southern Athens, yesterday, police said. The vandals doused the camera in a flammable liquid and set it alight at around 3 a.m., officers said. Another traffic camera, in Pallini, northeast of Athens was set on fire around an hour later. Bomb farce Police said yesterday that a phone call to a newspaper warning of a bomb being placed at the offices of Vodafone, in Halandri, northern Athens, turned out to be a prank. Bomb experts combed through the Vodafone building shortly after the phone call at around 3 p.m., but did not find any suspicious parcels. OTE robbery Two armed men held up a branch of OTE in Megara, west of Athens, yesterday and made away with an unknown amount of cash, police said. The hold-up took place at about 1 p.m. and the suspects escaped on foot, police added. Elderly targeted A 33-year-old man was arrested in Thessaloniki yesterday, accused of robbing elderly citizens. Police said that the suspect would enter the elderly people’s homes pretending to be interested in renting an apartment and then steal their cash and jewelry. The man has allegedly broken into 43 apartments between November 2004 and August 2005 and stolen goods valued at 24,500 euros. Migrants detained Police yesterday detained 66 illegal immigrants in the village of Mandra, close to Didymoteicho on the Greek-Turkish border, who were hidden inside a truck. The driver, a Greek national, was arrested and taken to a prosecutor. Baby bonus A woman who gave birth to a baby boy in Thessaloniki yesterday was given further good news when the city’s traders association informed her that she had won a car in a lucky draw on the same day. Ioanna Kanaki is a member of the association and was informed that she had won a Ford Mondeo just hours after she had given birth.
