In Brief
SUBURBAN RAILWAY
Mayor appeals against ‘illegal’ works, warns of traffic chaos Athens Mayor Dimitris Avramopoulos yesterday appealed to the Council of State against a government decision to construct a new suburban railway line scheduled for completion for the 2004 Olympics. Avramopoulos said the planned works – across a heavily built-up part of the city – were illegal, harmful to the environment, and would worsen traffic problems because tracks would be laid at the expense of crucial road space. FURY Trikala woman sentenced for attack on ex-lover’s family A 35-year-old woman who systematically hired shady underground figures to harass and harm the relatives of her former lover was yesterday sentenced to 15 months in jail by a Larissa appeals court. The woman, identified as Maria P. from a village near Trikala in central Greece, is already serving a nine-year term for hiring two people to rape her ex-lover’s wife. Yesterday, she received a three-year suspended sentence for organizing the abduction and beating of her ex-lover’s son while she was in Korydallos jail in January 2000. She is due to be tried again next year for a second attack on the son. EXPRESS SAMINA Ferry officials released on bail The former chairman of Minoan Flying Dolphins – owner of the Express Samina ferry which sank off Paros in September 2000 with the loss of 80 lives – was released on bail after testifying in a Syros court yesterday. Costas Klironomos, now chairman of the renamed company Hellas Flying Dolphins, paid 30,000 euros (10.2 million drachmas) – the same bail bond as his legal adviser Nikolaos Vikatos, who was released on Wednesday. Both men are charged with endangering human life and urging staff to make false statements. Reality TV The National Broadcasting Council yesterday said it would take unspecified disciplinary action against the television channels Mega and Antenna over the broadcasting of the controversial «Bar» and «Big Brother» reality TV shows. Olympic stadium The government yesterday issued a tender for a 77.4-million-euro refurbishment of the Olympic Games complex at Kalogreza, near Maroussi, in northern Athens, under plans by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava which include stadium roofs, artificial lakes and tree-lined walkways. Sword killer An Athens industrialist serving a 17-year jail sentence for the sword murder of his girlfriend eight years ago was released yesterday after a Piraeus court decided he had demonstrated «exemplary behavior» in Korydallos jail. Iosif Vayionis, who served just over half of his life sentence, was found guilty of murdering his girlfriend Eleni Paschou in 1994 with a sword in his company headquarters in Lykovrysi, northern Athens. Vayionis claimed Paschou had fallen onto the sword by accident. Mitsotakis sues The publishers of the satirical weekly «To Pontiki» are being sued for 300,000 euros by the honorary chairman of opposition New Democracy (ND) former premier Constantine Mitsotakis, who yesterday demanded compensation for libel after the paper implied he was behind recent claims that President Costis Stephanopoulos owned premises which were rented for use as an illegal slot machine joint. Mitsotakis is also seeking compensation over claims by the newspaper that he instigated rumors in 1997 that Stephanopoulos was about to resign due to poor health. Rape sentence A student found guilty of raping three women in the north Athenian district of Maroussi in 1998 will spend 13 years in jail, according to yesterday’s majority decision by an Athens appeals court. The court did not accept the claim by Manolis Alifrangis, 25, that he was on a study trip in Belgium during May and October 1998, when the rapes occurred. Search off The US Navy has called off the search for three crew members of a helicopter which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Greece on Tuesday morning and said, in a report yesterday, that they are presumed dead. The 24-hour search for the passengers of the SH-60B Seahawk, which covered an area of 2,590 square kilometers, ended late on Wednesday.
