IKA chief killed by blows
Coroners handed their final report yesterday to the magistrate investigating the alleged murder of IKA Chairman Yiannis Vartholomaios that, according to sources, maintains that the blows the civil servant received to his head killed him rather than his heart problems. Chief Coroner Philippos Koutsaftis and his assistants found that Vartholomaios was struck several times over the head with a blunt instrument. They said that his death was not linked to his heart condition nor a stimulant he had taken shortly before his death. Dimitris Vrakatselis, the man accused of murdering Vartholomaios, has admitted to hitting the late IKA chief in a fit of rage but his lawyer asked authorities to investigate whether the civil servant died as a direct result of the blows. Meanwhile, Vrakatselis’s wife, Thomais, admitted to the magistrate late on Thursday that she had been having an affair with Vartholomaios. She said she witnessed the fight between the two men through the peephole of her apartment door.