In Brief
ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Coast guard detains 59 migrants on two eastern Aegean islands Coast guard officers detained 44 illegal immigrants on the small islet of Oinouses in the eastern Aegean yesterday, the Merchant Marine Ministry said. The migrants said they were Palestinians and had sailed to the island from Turkey. The 42 men and two women were found after a patrol boat detected two sunken boats in the sea off the island. Meanwhile, five migrants were discovered on a beach on the island of Samos and 10 illegal immigrants were pulled out of the sea north of the eastern Aegean island, the ministry said yesterday. MISSING TOURIST Body of German, 70, found on Samos A 70-year-old German tourist who had been missing for a week on the eastern Aegean island of Samos was found dead yesterday, authorities said. The man was identified as Plato Rudolph. His body was found in the Vourliotes area of the island. He had last been seen at a taverna in the Manolates area last Sunday. A rescue team had been called in to look for the tourist after his wife and children raised the alarm. A sniffer dog was also brought to the island to help in the search. The cause of Rudolph’s death was not immediately clear and his body was taken to the hospital for a postmortem examination. Internet fraud A 30-year-old woman was arrested in Thessaloniki and charged with defrauding people via allegedly fake advertisements she place on the Internet, police said yesterday. The unnamed woman advertised apartments for rent and products for sale which did not exist, according to officers. The suspect allegedly took advance payments from customers but would not follow through on the deals. She is thought to have made almost 3,000 euros from the scam this year. Police believe she has been conning people since 2004. Ex-MP dies Former New Democracy MP Nondas Zafeiropoulos died at the age of 74 late on Saturday night. Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis paid tribute to Zafeiropoulos yesterday, saying he was one of the party’s «historic» members and that his contributions would live on after his death. Zafeiropoulos had served as a deputy for Athens and had previously been the head of the Athens Bar Association. The cause of his death was not made public. Trafficker jailed A 24-year-old man who was caught last week at the port of Igoumenitsa, northwestern Greece, trying to smuggle 11 illegal immigrants out of the country was sentenced to nine years and four months in jail, the Merchant Marine Ministry said yesterday. The man was arrested last Tuesday after officers found the migrants in the back of his truck. The foreign national, who was not named, was also fined 70,000 euros. A foreign woman who was in the vehicle with him was jailed for 40 days and will then be expelled from Greece. Cannabis raid Police in Hania located and destroyed some 200 cannabis trees near the city on Saturday. The plants were up to 5 meters in height and were found by a police helicopter near a soccer pitch in an agricultural area. Officers said the plants had been watered on Friday night but they were not able to find the people who had planted them.
