In Brief
PALAIOCOSTAS CASE
Prosecutor seeks guilty verdict for serial robber as trial nears end An appeals court prosecutor yesterday called for serial robber Nikos Palaiocostas to be found guilty of a raid in 2005 on a branch of National Bank in Megalopolis, in the Peloponnese. The prosecutor cited the depositions of several witnesses, the discovery of Palaicostas’s fingerprints on the getaway car and the defendant’s admission of involvement in the robbery. The court is due to reach its verdict on Friday. Palaiocostas had been on the run for 16 years until his arrest last September. SKIN CANCER AWARENESS Pharmacists launch campaign In an upcoming awareness campaign, the Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Organization wants to educate Greeks on how to decrease their chances of getting skin cancer by limited their exposure to the sun. The organization said yesterday half of all Greeks suffer serious sunburns by the time they reach age 18. The campaign, which advises citizens to seek advice from their pharmacists, begins in several major cities this month and lasts through July. Counterfeit notes Police said yesterday they found -57,000 worth of counterfeit notes hidden in a plastic bag in a remote area near Hania, Crete. Authorities said they had received a tip-off from an anonymous caller about where the fake money had been placed and had had the area under surveillance since Friday. But police decided to collect the fake -50 notes after no one appeared to pick up the money. Doctors strike The Panhellenic Doctors’ Association said yesterday that its members will be holding a 48-hour strike on March 28 and 29 to demand more hirings, better wages and a shorter working week. The union said that doctors should not be working more than 58 hours a week and did not rule out the possibility of more strikes after Easter. Above the law Some 20 students at the Athens Law School staged a sit-in protest at the offices of the Athens Bar Association, demanding that graduates should not be forced to pass exams to become members. The students argued that it was unfair that 40 graduates failed the latest round of exams. Piping hot Thieves broke into a water-pumping station near Ioannina, northeastern Greece, and stole -50,000 worth of copper pipes and electrical materials, police said yesterday. It is the area’s third such station, which is run by an agricultural cooperative, that has been robbed in recent weeks.
